


Angel and Creator

by Jrade



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Please somebody else use that tag in a fic I'm begging you :D), Action, Awkward first meeting, Because Sarcasm, But she can't let her girl get hurt, Canon Autistic Character, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fighting, Helix Securities Pharah, Humor, Impromptu manufacture of Moderate-Yield Thermonuclear Devices, Kissing, Momma Shrike doesn't give away her identity, Other develop by making wisecracks while kicking asses, Sarcasm, Shrike Ana, Shrike pulls a Gandalf and goes mysteriously missing, Some relationships develop in the crucible of combat, This is a bit of both of those, did i mention sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2018-12-22 08:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jrade/pseuds/Jrade
Summary: Fareeha "Pharah" Amari is a good soldier. The only problem is, she's notexactlya soldier anymore - her time in the military is done, and she works now for Helix Securities International. Overall, a good company, but she holds her own ethics in higher regards than company policy these days. A few issues in the past have not exactly shaken her confidence, but they've maybe changed her outlook.Pharah is sent on a solo mission to retrieve a very special package - a package by the name of Satya Vaswani. Pretty quickly, however, it turns out that Symmetra (as she is otherwise known) is no standard prisoner, in many ways. She didn't exactly getcaptured, to start with. The cherry on top? She doesn't exactlywantto be rescued.Not exactly the best foot to start things off on, but when things start off with such surprises, you can always expect that there's more to come...





	1. Protecting the Innocent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UvaRamune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UvaRamune/gifts).



> This one goes out to my good friend UvaRamune! Awesome artist and writes some really interestingly creative stuff, along with being generally fun and cool, and they requested some Symmarah so this one's for them!

“Sir?” Fareeha “Pharah” Amari was no stranger to orders - before Helix Security had been the Egyptian Military. Overwatch had been planned afterward, but the best-laid plans often ended due to catastrophic internal strife and horrific external vitriol. No, she was no stranger to orders. She simply didn’t understand  _ this _ one.

“It’s a simple retrieval mission - one of the Vishkar Corporation’s employees has been captured in a hostile area, they’ve employed us to ensure her safe return. Normally we would of course be sending you in as part of a team, but this is an area where we can’t afford to be drawing too much attention to ourselves. I apologize for that, but you have my word that you’ll have access to any other support you need.”

Pharah nodded curtly as her commanding officer misjudged the source of her confusion. Yes, it was odd not to be going in on a team, but that wasn’t what she was asking about. “Vishkar. The property development and architectural firm based out of India.”

“Yes,” her CO nodded, “you’ve done your homework, as per normal, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Of course I don’t need to state that this is an important mission with a lot riding on it, but,” he chuckled, “standard operating procedures and all.”

Pharah nodded again with a smile and a faint laugh through her nose, dark eyes studying the older man’s face. “I take it we’ve not been informed as to why, exactly, an employee of such a corporation has been captured in what amounts to a warzone?” There was a flicker of indecision in his eyes, which widened her smile a little bit. Indecision, not uncertainty.

“Well, it hardly matters, does it?” He shrugged. “The mission is to ensure her safe return, it hardly matters why she ended up-”

“It matters  _ to me. _ ” She leaned in toward the desk with a sharp smile. “With all due respect, sir. I need to know not only  _ why _ but also  _ how. _ I need to know the situation as fully as possible. It’s caused too many problems in the past to go in blind.”

It hadn’t always been that way. It had been thrilling, to leap into the unknown - until the cost had come crashing down on her.

His jaw tensed up at the unspoken implication. She had reacted flawlessly to the Anubis incident and all that had come in its wake, absolutely flawlessly - there was not a spot on her record nor a crack in her armour. At the same time, she made it very clear who she blamed for the loss of her team members. She simply did so in an impeccable fashion which put her beyond reproach in the matter.

This was not the military, and Pharah knew it. It was a paramilitary organization at best, and while she understood orders, she also understood ethics and they were the greater of the two motivations. Sometimes, a corporate entity like Helix could get a little bit distracted by the business side of things, and forget their greater purpose.

Luckily, she was there to remind them.

“She is… a special operative of some sort,” he finally admitted with a sigh. “They call them Architechs, generally - they’re capable of manipulating light into physical forms, through the use of special generators. Apparently this ‘Satya Vaswani’ is a very special example amongst them, prodigious and assigned primarily to… high-interest exercises, under the moniker ‘Symmetra’. She was in the area retrieving a shipment of materials which were stolen from a Vishkar convoy, when she was overrun and they lost contact. That really is all I know.”

“So she can create objects from nothing?” Pharah scoffed slightly. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Are we being employed to return the stolen materials?”

“Vishkar made no mention of it, so, no, we are not. They provided a small kit of equipment which is to be provided to their employee, it will be waiting with your Raptora - do you have any further questions?”

She grinned and shook her head. “Of course not, sir. I appreciate the thoroughness of your briefing, as always. Am I dismissed?” He nodded after a moment’s pause, and she turned on heel and strode out of the office.

It had taken a while to get used to, the differences between militaristic life and… she hesitated to call it mercenarial, but that was essentially the fact of the matter. Helix were guardians for hire, and she didn’t mind that terribly - so long as they focused on the  _ guardians _ rather than the  _ hire. _ She knew that she would. She’d decided that long ago.

At first, when she’d joined, she’d treated it more as a military experience, and it had been a fairly poor idea to do so. It was just a little easier, in the first place - and all the moreso given the losses she’d been going through at the time. Overwatch, her dream… and her mother as well.

Pharah nodded to a person who passed her in one of the hallways, steeling her face against the grimace that wanted to wash over it. Years past, it was all years past, and still the wounds felt so fresh.

She did what she often did in times of doubt or worry - she raised a hand and stroked a fingertip down the tattoo under her right eye. Udjat, the Eye of Horus, a symbol of protection that she’d given herself after her mother’s death, in her mother’s memory. It was a comfort at times. A reminder.

She  _ did _ like Helix, they were largely full of good people. She did get a thrill out of the fights, as well, although that had been dampened by the loss of team members. As time went by, Fareeha thought that she might understand some of her mother’s stories, and some of her viewpoints, a little bit better.

Perhaps a little too late to bond over it. Never too late to benefit, though.

Fareeha strode confidently down the hallways toward the hangar, and patted the mechanic on the shoulder when she got there. “Anderson! Tell me she’s in good shape?”

Henry Anderson, a tall and gangly man who was already going bald despite only being twenty-five years old, sighed heavily and shook his head. “Please, I know better than to try to lie to you.” Pharah laughed as he stepped over toward her Raptora suit and tapped at it with the wrench in his grease-stained hands.

“Your primary systems are all green. New fuel manifold got you six percent more thrust and four percent more fuel efficiency - I know you’d been complaining about that.”

“Complaining? Me?” She grinned, crossing her arms. “I’d never dream of such a thing.”

As if he hadn’t even heard her interruption, Anderson continued. “Problem is that we still haven’t ironed out that thrust modulation issue. Fine for short jumps, but extended periods you’ll run into those same inconsistencies again - plus, we’re still having that thermocouple malfunction in your left jet. Temps looks fine on the bench, but you’ll be seeing that warning notification non-stop.”

“Mmhmm,” Pharah hummed, tipping her head toward the mechanical suit of armour and jump-jets. “Not to mention the fact that it’s been repainted.”

With a wide smirk, Anderson tapped his wrench against the helmet. The whole suit was normally bright blue with a golden visor, but now it was instead a dark, uniform coat of slate blackish-gray with gold accents all over it that gleamed in the lights of the mechanical bay.

“You like it?” He flashed Pharah another grin and shrugged. “They said for this mission it had to look unlike us, incognito. I figured that, you know, for a six-and-a-half-foot-tall, four hundred pound, heavily armoured super-soldier with jump-jets and a rocket launcher? Black and gold’s incognito enough.”

She stepped forward with a chuckle and reached out a hand to stroke along the freshly-dried paint. It looked like a sport car, a classic one - from the days back when carbon fibre had been a big deal. “I like it,” she murmured.

“Yeah, well, just remember: if you don’t get it back here before midnight, it turns back into a pumpkin, so,” he shrugged with a chuckle and patted her once on the shoulder. “Good luck, Pharah - all fueled and ready to go.”

“Just the way I like it,” she confirmed with a sharp grin, patting the black-and-gold armour firmly. 

 

\---

 

Symmetra took a deep breath, eyes closed, hands in loose fists. Interlaced fingers would have been more pleasant, but with her wrists clamped down to the frame she was held to, she had no such option.  _ One does what one must in the circumstances. _

Another fist met her gut and knocked the wind out of her, but she let it go and did not struggle trying to hold it in vain. She let her lungs be empty for a moment before she slowly drew another breath. The man shouted questions at her, but he was not worthy of her attention.

She intended not to answer, anyway. There was hardly any point listening to a question which one had no intention of answering.

The next time, he threw an elbow into her gut instead of his fist - it felt like it, sharper and applying more force. Being closer to the fulcrum, such as it was, that made sense. She still did nothing save for let the force move her and then slowly take another breath in its wake. She kept her eyes closed. She mapped out what she knew of the facility, what she knew of their operations. She took stock of her resources.

She waited for the aid that she knew Vishkar would be sending.

Sanjay might be displeased, but this was more important than Sanjay. She knew he would understand when she explained it to him - how could he not? He was a good man, and would agree with her goals as any good person would. However, she also knew that she could not do this alone. Vishkar would be sending someone to aid her, now that she was captured.

All she needed to do was wait.

 

\---

 

Pharah looked out of the window as she flew toward the drop-zone - in her armour, in the back of a plane. It shook gently in the air as they hurtled onward and Pharah ran through every detail that had been included in the package - as well as those she’d managed to sneak out of her commander during the briefing.

Satya Vaswani, twenty-eight years old; four years Pharah’s junior. Five foot seven inches tall, black hair, golden-brown eyes, prosthetic left arm which she used for her construction, somehow. She was one of Vishkar’s top Architechs, largely responsible for the design of their housing development in Rio de Janeiro.

_ It would probably be poor form to blame the riots on her designs. I’m sure they weren’t that awful. _ Pharah chuckled slightly to her own reflection in the window.

Realistically, Satya was less interesting to her than as an Architech than as the special operative ‘Symmetra’. What sort of designer or engineer was sent into warzones to retrieve stolen materias?

_ Apparently, an incapable one. _ Pharah scoffed lightly at herself. She knew it was a rude thought - she knew it was a  _ wrong _ thought. So the woman had been captured. It didn’t mean she was incapable. Captain Khalil had been entirely capable. He was still dead. Pharah’s own mother had been the most capable person she’d ever met. She was still dead.

Capability didn’t always align with success. The capable ones stretched further, and they were the ones who would find themselves falling as a result.

Pharah pulled her thoughts away from their sad dwellings on the fate of Overwatch and her own past, as the rear door of the aircraft started to open up. She got up from her seat and double-checked her rocket launcher - smirking as she thought of Anderson’s mentions of this being an  _ incognito _ mission - and stepped over to the door.

The air whistled past, almost shrieked where its smooth flow was torn by the aircraft’s rivets or propeller tips. Pharah inched forward, until her toes were hanging off of the edge of the floor, nothing but clouds spread out below her and air rushing past. Her heart picked up, a slow grin spreading across her face.

This was the part she never seemed to be able to communicate to her mother. Pharah knew it was dangerous, she  _ knew _ there were risks to it all… but it was  _ exciting. _ Despite the worries and the fears, it did thrill her.

With a happy sigh, Fareeha “Pharah” Amari let herself tip forward, falling out of the back of the airplane and hurtling headfirst toward the ground. Her sigh grew quickly into a bright laugh as she felt the thrum of the airstream tickling at her cheeks and neck around the edges of her helmet, the display on the inside highlighting her destination and what had been deemed the most efficient path there.

Of course, it was only the most efficient path if one wasn’t creative. If one wasn’t willing to take a few risks - and given the choice between the risk of hitting the ground too hard, and spending twenty more minutes in a combat zone getting shot at, Pharah knew which one she would choose. Which one she  _ was _ choosing, as she used her jets in short bursts, twisting her descent off to the side and ignoring the displayed line.

She clutched her launcher in close to her chest, shaking slightly as the air shoved at her arms and legs but she let that all be absorbed as her altimeter ticked down lower and lower. The clouds surrounded her suddenly, leaving droplets that streaked back her freshly-painted armour and a chill that soaked into her skin, but brought a grin to her lips.

As a little girl, she had looked at the sky and wondered over the clouds - those huge cotton-balls drifting across the sky. She had stretched and stretched and stretched, but even climbing the tallest tree she could find, she had never been able to touch them, of course.

Fareeha stretched out a hand with a laugh, her hand streaking effortlessly through the cloud. She could finally touch the sky.

When she popped out of the bottom of the cloud cover, she pulled her launcher in close again and began to study the layout of the buildings below her. An industrial complex at some point, but probably repurposed at this point. Her visor picked out a few people moving - guards, presumably. She didn’t know where exactly Vaswani would be being held.

There was risk to the unknown. There was a thrill to it, as well.

Pharah burst her manoeuvring jets on, flipping around to be falling feet-first and then activating her main jets to slow her descent - but not too much. She landed with a slam on the ground, one boot cracking the pavement below it, the servos in the knees of the Raptora helping to absorb the strain.

One foot flew out and knocked one of the guards back before he could even turn around, flinging him against a stack of crates before Pharah flicked her jets on again and propelled herself backward, shoulder-first into the gut of the other guard. The air wheezed out of him painfully and she spun around, giving him a swift kick in the head.

Normally, she would have led with rockets - but the further in she could get without a bullet being fired, the better. To that end, she’d brought along some ancillary materials of her own. She pulled out a roll of duct tape which she’d taken from Anderson’s work-bench, and shortly had both of the guards bound and gagged, but neither of them were really trying to speak or escape. One was unconscious, and the other could barely groan, but she hardly cared.

She dragged the pair of them behind the stack of crates and crouched there as well for a moment, studying the way forward. Three building here, two small ones and one quite large, along with a few tiny shacks dotted around. In her mind, where Vaswani would be quite depended on what they were  _ doing _ with her. If she was just being held captive, those tiny shacks would probably serve as excellent holding cells. If she was being interrogated, then somewhere within one of the other buildings would probably make more sense.

Pharah figured she was more likely to face guards in the buildings - or at least, to face ones who would surprise her. At the shacks, she’d see them posted out front, she reasoned. They were a good place to start.

Somewhere on the grounds, they must have had a firing range of sorts. Pharah could hear gunshots sporadically in the background, and she chuckled softly to herself as she shook her head.  _ They’re making this too easy. _

The first shack she went to was unguarded and empty. The second, unguarded and being used for storage, stacked full of crates of something. The third had a pair of guards standing, one on each side of the door.

_ Paydirt. _ Pharah grinned sharply beneath her helmet as she crept around to the side, getting into position. When she had a good angle, she leapt forward and opened up her jets - they launched her toward the shack more quickly than the guards could react. She slammed one of them sideways into the other, and then landed heavily on top of the pair, swinging an elbow up into one’s jaw and then standing to give the other one a swift, heavy kick in the gut. More duct tape ensured they wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, and Pharah hid their guns away where she’d be able to find them later if needed.

_ Too easy! _ She chuckled again to herself as she pulled the door back and peered into the shack.  _ Ah. Well, that’s not good. _

She’d never actually seen radioactive materials before, but she  _ did _ recognize the sticker.  240 Pu printed on the side, and a large stencil reading “Nuclear Materials” in Arabic, were also on the sides off the metal cases.

There were six of them.

“Well, I’m quite certain that’s not good,” Pharah muttered to herself, shaking her head as she swung the door closed. She couldn’t radio out until bullets started flying, for risk of blowing her cover. She didn’t know much about nuclear things - they were used in bombs and reactors, she knew. The only question remaining was whether these were the sort for reactors, or the sort for weapons. 

She was also suddenly struck with an intense curiosity about just  _ what _ had been stolen from Vishkar.

 

\---

 

Symmetra smiled as the men left with shouts. They’d split her lip and cracked a rib, but they had begun to pull their punches and she could tell. Their blows were softened now, and their shouts all the harsher - she was breaking them, slowly but surely, as water erodes the stone.

It hurt, yes, but everything hurt. It was easy for her not to speak, and all they  _ wanted _ was for her to speak. They needed her alive to reveal secrets which they required, and all she needed to do was remain silent. So long as she did, her survival was guaranteed.

She did appreciate when life was simple.

Though her eyes were still closed, she could tell when the lights were shut off along with some shout that the man followed with a laugh. He still wasn’t worthy of her paying the slightest attention to his words - he’d already said all she needed to know, all she wished to discover.

_ Such a fool. _ Symmetra chuckled to herself softly.  _ To think that interrogation works only in one direction. _

 

\---

 

Pharah jogged along after she’d moved the cases full of nuclear materials. Something like that was something she definitely wanted people to misplace - if they wanted to find it, she wanted to hide it.

A shout rang out, followed by a few gunshots - she felt an impact against her Raptora’s shoulderpiece and spun to face that way. A man on the roof had a bead on her, and let off another burst. Pharah let off a burst of her own, rockets flaring at her back and launching her toward her assailant.

She grinned as his eyes widened in a combination of surprise and fear. Most people weren’t expecting people to shrug off bullets and leap thirty feet in a jet-propelled jump. She loved taking advantage of that lack of expectations - a knee to his gut sent him back to the ground, and she followed it up with a quick kick, but the game was up

An alarm began to sound, quiet at first but rising quickly. Another shout from another location came along with a hail of gunfire - submachine gun, from the sounds of it. Small-calibre, rapid-fire.

Pharah took to the skies as the bullets spattered around her. Smoke and flame swirled around her armoured legs as she twisted in the air, swirling to face the shooter and bringing her rocket launcher to bear.

_ Yeah. Incognito. _ She chuckled as she depressed the trigger.

Her helmet dampened the sound of it all - of her jets, of the rocket she launched off, of the explosion it made as it took off one corner of one of the buildings. Dampened the sound of the soldier’s  _ (very) _ brief scream. She took the airborne opportunity to scan the grounds as the complex reacted to her presence.

A pair of watchtowers near the front entrance directed spotlights inward, searching the ground for the attacking forces. She suspected there were probably machine guns to go with those lights, but it was encouraging to note that they were stupid enough to take their attention entirely off of the front gate while looking for her. She’d already doubted that anyone here was highly trained, but the confirmation was appreciated.

As she hovered some thirty feet in the air, soldiers spilled out of one of the buildings below like coffee, spreading out and taking cover behind crates or low walls. They weren’t careful with their sight-lines, and they ran in wobbly paths. A few were not wearing whole outfits. The soldiers below hardly had a  _ uniform _ , but she could still recognize the signs of waking up to an alarm and readying in a hurry.

The first fire drill she’d been a part of, they’d run all the way to the evac point before she’d woken up enough to realize she wasn’t wearing shoes. The commander had actually complimented her on that - having trained the procedures in thoroughly enough to react correctly to a fire alarm whilst still being almost totally asleep.

He’d still assigned her the worst guard post in the camp for a week, though. The MIR had been none to happy about what ended up  _ happening _ to her feet as she ran through the camp toward the evac point. They always expected some injuries to accompany a drill, but not usually rocks and glass against the soles of feet.

It all told her a little bit more. That building would be the barracks, then, filled with sleeping soldiers - soldiers who weren’t highly trained or highly ready. She saw one below who realized he’d forgotten his rifle. To his credit, he instinctively grabbed at his sidearm. Of course, he wasn’t wearing that either.

With a soft snicker, Pharah leaned over and set off her main jets in a large burst again. It sent her streaking sideways across the sky and she cut thrust entirely, and suspected that she’d actually blend in to the night pretty well.

In theory, she could’ve killed them all, and there had been a time that she probably would have. If her team had been here right now, that would have likely been the case, in fact - that was the sort of squad they were, a kill everything squad.

However, the men below were disoriented. If she could stay unseen a little longer, that would be better - and she could hardly float in one place and unleash volleys of rockets, and hope to remain invisible.

A rocket or two, though? No problem.

Her first, from her launcher, she sent toward one of the guard towers - one-handed, not perfectly aimed, as she let off a concussive rocket from her wrist-launcher at the soldiers clustered below. They were flung backward, tumbling over themselves and shouting in confusion as they turned and searched behind themselves, the rooftops above themselves - a few seconds later, when her rocket struck the watchtower about halfway up, they all focused on that.

“To the front gate!” Pharah could hear the shout drift up from below and smiled, stuttering her jets briefly to spoil her momentum as she came in close to the ground and managed to touch down in a run.

If  _ that _ building was the barracks, then she might as well check the other smaller one first - and  _ hope _ that Vaswani wasn’t being stored in the old assembly warehouse. That would take a lot longer to search.

 

\---

 

They didn’t come to bring her back to her cell. It had been two days that she’d been suspended on this frame now, clamped down at her wrists and her ankles, tilted back at forty-seven degrees.

It didn’t matter. Vishkar would send their aid, and then she would fix the problem that had arisen. Retrieve the stolen goods.

Symmetra heard an alarm. She heard shouts and then, an explosion. A grin grew on her lips and she started to chuckle, deep in her chest.

These men were fools to steal from the Vishkar Corporation, but that was not even their greatest shortcoming. For them to think that the universe had no order, to think that they could simply do as they pleased and there would never be a reckoning, never be any comeuppance?  _ That _ was their greatest foolishness.

Symmetra relaxed back against the quite pleasant board along her spine, and continued to laugh softly as the sounds continued. Chaos, perhaps, yes - but not  _ her _ chaos. No, this was the chaos the men had brought on themselves for their attempts, at the hand of Vishkar’s aid. Soon to be joined by Vishkar’s agent, as well.

She twitched and stretched her muscles to restore bloodflow, and ensure that she would be capable when her restraints were removed. She kept her eyes closed.

 

\---

 

Pharah let out a brief laugh as the rapid thump of a large-calibre machine gun echoed through the compound from the front gate. She didn’t know  _ what _ the guard tower would be firing at, but it wasn’t her - and it did confirm her suspicions that the towers were armed.

Shouts grew more distant as most of the soldiers ran over that way, and she heard the soft crackling of flames as well. It would seem that her rocket had caught the watchtower ablaze, and that gave her an easy way to provide more distraction.

There were vehicles dotted throughout the compound - some looked like they were in use, others were rusted old hulks. She chose one of the latter and grinned at the cigarette and cigar butts that dotted the ground.

_ Perfect. Absolutely perfect. _ She aimed a stiff punch at its fuel tank, easily rupturing the rusted metal and yanking her hand back as fuel started to spill out.

Her nose wrinkled from the sharp stench - it was stale, very stale, and smelled absolutely disgusting. There were thick, reddish-brown clumps of biological growth and rust, but it would still burn. Pharah kicked in a nearby crate and pulled a chunk of wood loose, popped a rocket out of her launcher, and manually shorted out the igniter.

A small pencil flame leapt from the rocket’s rear and she used it to light the wood. She held tightly until the rocket guttered out entirely, and then set it gently on the ground - armed warhead facing up. With a brief smirk at her improvised landmine, she tossed the burning chunk of wood gently onto the puddle of fuel forming around the truck, and grinned as it lit up and the flames began to spread, crawling along the pool toward the fuel tank.

Pharah turned and ran off, letting out a brief laugh a few seconds later as a deep  _ whoomph _ sounded, the truck leaping into flames. The soldiers would be looking a few different places now, which meant she’d have a few minutes of distraction to hopefully find this Vaswani woman.

She grinned sharply as she ran through the chaos, the sounds of shouting and gunfire easily covering her heavy footfalls. One guard had the misfortune of turning the corner in front of her, but before he could do anything she had leapt at him, keying her jets to fling him back heavily against a crate. A few seconds and a little more duct tape, and she launched up to the rooftop to leave him where he wouldn’t be found.

Then she hopped down and spent a second looking at the door almost nervously. A lot of her strengths wouldn’t really play out,  _ inside. _ Mobility? Gone. Her rockets? No use. She still had her hand-to-hand training, which was admittedly formidable, and her armour would do plenty to absorb incoming damage. The jets were surprisingly helpful as a combat tool if you were creative.

A fresh wave of shouts that seemed to be concentrating over toward the other side of the compound spurred her on. She yanked the door open and ran inside.

_ Please let this be the right building. _

 

\---

 

Her muscles hurt at first, pins and needles breaking out underneath her skin - but only the mundane sort. Only the sort that came about when circulation had been restricted, and then restored. It was a fairly simple matter to slow one’s heart through meditative exercises, and to numb pain as well. It had all been quite simple, but it was done now.

The guards called to each other throughout the building, and she heard snippets of radio conversations as people ran past her chamber. Some mentions of fires and explosions and snipers. She paid it little mind, but did smile a little as the thought of how much Vishkar was dedicating to her sank in. It felt delightful to be appreciated and cared for as much as they appreciated and cared for her. She was safe in their hands.

Symmetra’s lips twisted into a frown and she winced slightly as an attempt at a deep breath was cut short. She would need to find a medical station, but that was hardly of any consequence. For the time being, she continued to focus on tensing up her muscles in waves - her calves, her biceps, everything that she hadn’t moved for days - to prepare for her release.

A shout sounded from somewhere within the building, and a gunshot echoed. It was followed by a grunt and some harsh rushing sound, and then a loud cracking noise. Symmetra opened her eyes and glanced over toward the door. She heard thumping - she heard the guard posted outside the door readying his weapon.

There was another shout, this one from just outside. Sharp gunshots that she flinched at, and her eyes widened slightly as the wall burst inward next to the door. Something huge flew through it, bright flames flying at their back - the guard was flung to the ground and what appeared to be a heavily-armoured soldier landed on top of them, their suit painted black and gold.

They delivered a swift punch which rocked the guard’s head to the side, then flipped him over and bound his wrists with tape, and gagged him with the same. Then, the soldier stood and brushed debris off of their shoulders and legs.

“Just glad Anderson’s not here to mock me about thrust modulation,” she muttered as she pulled out a splinter that was stuck in near her elbow, with a hiss. The tip was stained red with blood, but only the smallest amount.

Then, the soldier caught sight of her and straightened up, tapping at the side of her helmet. A gold visor retracted, revealing a dark and concerned, stoic face. Dark eyes, dark lips, an intricate tattoo under one eye; small gold baubles hung in what black hair Symmetra could see.

“Miss Vaswani?” The soldier stepped closer with a nod. “I’ve been sent on behalf of the Vishkar corporation to ensure your safety.” She pulled a small device which had been clipped at her belt, and began to cut through the clamps that held Symmetra’s wrists.

Symmetra had never much understood the fascination with guardian angels, in several ways. She understood the  _ premise, _ the concept, yes - an entity of light and darkness in some ways, of placidity and violence both; a juxtaposition, perhaps, or a balance, alternately. She’d simply never understood why one would wish to place one’s fate in another’s hands. People determined their own destinies in accordance with the laws of the universe - just actions were met with just rewards and unjust ones were punished.

Now, however, she suspected she was looking at an agent of that punishment. A dark angel, wings at her back currently furled but ready to be unleashed. Symmetra thought that she was quite beautiful.

“You took some time in coming here.” She frowned slightly at her own unintentional words, meeting Pharah’s dark eyes as they snapped over. There was an instant of confusion before Pharah barked a laugh.

“Well, good to see we’re feeling grateful,” she shook her head slightly, kneeling to cut the two clamps at Symmetra’s ankles. “I didn’t delay before coming here. If you’ve been captive long, it’s not my doing.”

“I didn’t mean-” Symmetra started and then cut off with an exhalation. It would be pointless to try to explain, it always was. There was a time that it had been intensely frustrating to her, when she had felt helpless and broken for her inabilities to make herself understood. Now, she recognized it for what it was - no failing on her part, but rather, a simple misalignment. One could hardly blame either of a square peg or a round hole for failing to align correctly.

“No matter, you are here now,” Symmetra cleared her throat slightly. 

Unseen to her, Pharah rolled her eyes.

“I am Symmetra. Vishkar sent you to aid me? Excellent. You seem quite capable.”

“I appreciate your assessment,” Pharah muttered darkly as she cut the final clamp and stood quickly, holding underneath Symmetra’s armpits and helping her gently off of the torture frame she’d been strapped to. “However, I am not here to  _ aid _ you. I’m here to  _ return _ you. Can you stand? Can you walk?”

Symmetra had never been this close to an angel before, guardian or otherwise. Her arms were unsurprisingly strong, and unsurprisingly gentle. She was surely the epitome of her kind, and it all stunned Symmetra enough that she didn’t process the words correctly at first. When she did make sense of them, however, she frowned and pushed herself back away from Pharah.

“There are matters here which require attention. I refuse to leave until they are corrected.”

Pharah took a step back and crossed her arms, lips pursing as she looked over the Architech. Slim, but athletic. Clearly wounded, blood on her face. An outfit that looked more becoming of a dancer than any sort of operative - all thigh and long swishing tails, it definitely looked  _ nice _ , it just didn’t look like anything a soldier would wear on deployment. There were really only two things about her that looked capable at all, in Pharah’s assessment: her mechanical arm, and her eyes.

A dark but vibrant golden-brown, like wildflower honey, but they had steel behind them. A determination which Pharah recognized instantly - people knew better than to try to lie to her. There was a common opinion that she could see through into people’s souls, and she knew that Symmetra was not lying. She  _ was _ refusing to leave. She’d need to be convinced, or otherwise motivated.

“Vishkar’s stolen goods are not our concern,” Pharah responded curtly with a shake of her head, her own gaze no less resolute as they locked. “They made no mention of it in our contract. I’ve been employed only to return  _ you _ , and I will do so.” Her lips pulled back from her teeth in something that could have been called a grin. It might not have been entirely accurate, though. “ _ Regardless _ of whether you co-operate.”

Symmetra’s jaw clenched and her scalp prickled as one hand pulled into a fist. “You don’t understand. You don’t even care to  _ try _ to, you-”

“No, I don’t.” Pharah cut her off. “Now, will you come with me, or must I drag you kicking and screaming?”

Symmetra swallowed, slowly, studying the situation. Her resources. The facility layout. This guardian angel turned mercenary, who seemed to care more about the contract than about  _ good. _ Perhaps she was darker than she had first appeared.

“I will go willingly, of course.” Symmetra admitted. “I am no fool. However, we must first regain my tools. Without them I will be useless to aid you.”

Pharah reached behind her back and grabbed at a small case which had been provided for the mission. It came free and she held it out. “Vishkar sent this along for you. And no offence meant, but I don’t require your aid.” She turned her head toward the door, gripping her rocket launcher and muttering softly. “After all,  _ I’m _ not the one who went and got captured…”

Symmetra’s scalp prickled and she gritted her teeth as she moved to a nearby table and opened the case. “I was captured by no accident,” she hissed, pulling out a visor and lifting it into place. The earbuds fit pleasantly and the display immediately lit up. “I gave myself over willingly to gain information, and to ensure that Vishkar would send more aid.”

“Mm-hmm, sure,” Pharah hummed in response, not looking over.

Symmetra rolled her eyes as she lifted a new photon projector out of the case. It unfolded and unfurled from its storage position and she smiled as she coalesced a small orb of energy and popped it into place, powering the weapon. “You doubt my abilities? You refuse to lend me your aid? Very well.”

Pharah didn’t have much of an opportunity to react. She wasn’t looking that way, so her first indication that anything was wrong was an odd sort of thrumming numbness that overtook her as her vision brightened.

She crumpled to the ground with a weak cry as Symmetra kept the beam trained on her - inflicting no harm, but draining the woman’s energy until she lost consciousness. Symmetra scoffed and leaned down, grabbing at one of Pharah’s arms and dragging her over to a corner - her ribs protested but it was of no consequence.

There was an aid kit nearby and Symmetra stepped to it, flipping the case open and removing a small glass cylinder which she recognized. Nanobots had made many advancements in technology, and while hard light was  _ far _ superior, they had sadly yet to make much in the way of breakthroughs for healing. She drank down the cold blue glowing fluid, shivering as the chill started to spread and focused where she’d been injured: her lips, her cheeks, her ribs.

She tapped at the button on her visor. “Sanjay.”

“Apologies, Symmetra, but he is not present. It is good to note that you have been freed! I suppose not every mission can be a success.”

Symmetra’s eyes narrowed. She recognized the lightly taunting voice. “Note nothing of the sort, Idri. I have not yet been freed and the mission is not failed. Be aware only that there is much happening here that is beyond your comprehension. It would be foolish of me to attempt to explain it to you.”

With that, Symmetra pressed another button and silenced the radio link, huffing a breath out through her nose in frustration. She stalked over toward the corner and waited for her so-called guardian angel to regain consciousness. It would not take long.

“Perhaps this time you will listen to reason,” she muttered, looking down. Her eyes fixated on that tattoo. There were a thousand different beliefs, worldwide, about tattoos; she wondered what meaning this one held. She wondered whether this angel could be won back toward the forces of good once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly the best of first encounters, heh - and maybe they're not getting along so well at the moment, but it'll get better, don't worry!
> 
> Come on back next time when Pharah wakes up. She's pretty pissed about it - or at least, she's pretty pissed about getting knocked out in the first place.
> 
> Thanks for reading, folks! Hope you've liked it so far, and I'd love to hear what you think below - have a great day!


	2. Awakening Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pharah awakens from unconsciousness to find Symmetra standing over her. There's a bit of hostility, but Symmetra does get a chance to explain what's going on - and to ask for Pharah's aid, as well. Or demand it. Either way.

Pharah groaned and tried to shake her head. She tried to lift her arms or raise her rocket launcher, to do anything really, but couldn’t. She couldn’t even blink, her eyes hung half-open and heavily lidded, her breath was thick and slow. Her vision swam, mostly dark with splotches of blurry light; everything sounded fuzzy and distant like she’d had about fifty too many to drink.

“Mlllllruuugh,” she moaned, piecing together what thoughts and memories she could. Talking to Vaswani after freeing her. A disagreement.

“Hmm? What is that?”

The words swam out of a dark chaotic sea of sensation as a blur started to become a little clearer in the centre of her vision. A light blur with dark parts. “Muhtd… dootamee?”

“Are you willing to listen, now? To at least open yourself up to the _ possibility _ of reason?” Hissed, angry words. Vaswani’s words.

“Mmvaswani. What did… youdo. To me?” Pharah squeezed her eyes together as tightly as she could manage, willing them into clearer focus. It hardly worked. She saw the Architech standing before her as if through a thick haze, or underwater - arms crossed in front of herself - but couldn’t see any details. No facial expression. No face at all, really. That was all just blurry.

“It is a purely temporary measure, I assure you. The effects will fade in mere moments, but I required an opportunity to explain the situation to you.”

“You don’t… fuck around, do you, Vaswani?” Pharah’s words came out thickly and sloshing together, and her head lolled to the side as she tried to turn it, bringing the ceiling into view and making her stomach churn.

Symmetra crouched down with a sigh, rolling her eyes and reaching out to grab a handful of Pharah’s dark and silky hair. It would seem that this guardian angel conditioned quite thoroughly. Symmetra tugged her head upright and met her blazingly angry eyes.

“If I could move, I would punch you.” Pharah’s vision still swam out of focus.

Symmetra laughed lightly at that. “Well,” she smiled, “that hardly provides me with any incentive to permit your movements, does it?”

Pharah didn’t respond except for to clench her jaw.

It gave Symmetra pause for a moment. The soldier was recovering movement very swiftly. She also had been almost certainly truthful with her threats of punching. “Only a moment. Please. Permit me to explain.”

Pharah was somewhat surprised that she actually bothered to ask. Sort of ask, at least. It wasn’t as if she had many options. She still couldn’t manage a fist. Yet. “Fine.”

Symmetra huffed a short exhalation through her nose. “Finally. You are quite intractable.”

“Still working on that fist, Vaswani. Might wanna talk quick.” Her words were a little slurred, but getting clearer swiftly.

“There is more going on here than the theft of Vishkar materials - although that is also worthy of our attention-”

“Our?” Pharah scoffed. “There is no  _ our _ . There is only  _ me  _ and  _ my  _ mission.”

“If you insist on interrupting me I will simply paralyze you again,” Symmetra murmured softly.

“Fine. Thirty seconds, I’ll shut up. Then we swap.”

“Thirty seconds,” Symmetra rolled her eyes, “is hardly enough time to-”

“Twenty-eight, now.”

She wasted a whole second staring incredulously into the soldier’s eyes. Deep, dark eyes, entirely serious. Symmetra wasted no further time and spoke swiftly. “These men are gathering nuclear materials, and they have been forcing nearby citizens to do their bidding under threat. The captives are made to labour clearing out underground caverns of some sort - I do not know to what end, they have been too covert for my efforts to bring it to light, but there are very few possibilities for these concurrent actions, and none are good. You have been sent to aid me, now  _ aid  _ me. Release the prisoners and defuse the plans in motion.”

When she finished, she nodded once and met Pharah’s gaze, and held it. Pharah didn’t speak for a second or two. “That was thirty-two seconds.”

“Yes, and you now have only twenty-three.”

She thought she saw a hint of a smirk at the corner of the Architech’s lips. It wasn’t a bad look on her, actually, snarky - she returned it in kind. “I’m not here to  _ aid _ you, I am here to  _ rescue _ you. Vishkar made no mention of any of that in their briefing materials, my only goal here - my  _ only _ goal - was to remove you from captivity and ensure your safe return.”

“Was.”

It took a moment for Pharah to be certain she’d heard correctly. She frowned. “Ex-  _ excuse _ me? Did you just say  _ was?” _

“Yes.” Symmetra didn’t blink, nor change her expression in any way, she only stared into Pharah’s eyes. “That  _ was _ your goal. Has it changed?”

_ Hmm. _ Pharah fought a smirk back that wanted to take her lips.  _ She really doesn’t fuck around. _ She mulled it over for a moment. Being in the field required swift tactical decisions, rapid choices about which path to take or how to tackle an obstacle. Which objectives were truly vital to the mission, which needed to be abandoned in order to ensure success - or perhaps, when the whole thing needed to be aborted in order to ensure the team’s survival. The tradeoff between risk and reward.

She was empowered to make those decisions, which was good. Otherwise, she suspected there might well be a court-martial in her future - but of course, Helix could not conduct courts-martial anyway. Pharah didn’t mind a disciplinary hearing. It was like an obstacle course run in a conference room, it might even be a little fun.

Pharah held out her hand, offering it to be shaken. “You’ve won a few moments at least.” Her hand clenched into a fist, one finger extended in warning as she raised an eyebrow. “If you paralyze me again, I’m knocking you out, throwing you over my shoulder, and taking you back to Vishkar.”

Symmetra stared down at the hand. The fist. The hand which could  _ make _ a fist, and raise - yet, hadn’t punched her. Not yet. “I would not paralyze my allies.”

“You don’t consider a rescuer an ally?” Pharah grinned in spite of herself, in shock, eyebrow raising higher as her eyes sparkled in amusement.

On the other hand, Symmetra looked back mirthlessly, only shaking her head slightly. “There are more pressing concerns than captivity. A rescuer who cares not for those, is no ally of mine. If you offer otherwise…” she reached down and clasped Pharah’s hand, shaking it firmly before pulling her up to her feet. “Then, that is a different matter.”

“Using prisoners to dig out caves, you say?” Pharah murmured, rubbing at her jaw. Her limbs still felt heavy, and numb - like she’d sat on them wrong for half an hour. “You’re lucky I actually  _ found _ the nuclear materials outside, otherwise I would have decked you and dragged you back to Helix.”

“Helix Security, International?”

Pharah turned swiftly, a frown on her face, and noticed that Vaswani was staring at her seemingly in shock. “Yes. My employer.”

There was a moment where the Architech stood, lips slightly parted - looking as if she wanted to say something, but she decided against it and shook her head. “Interesting,” she murmured, facing toward the door again. “Are your facilities quite returned?”

Pharah shrugged - or at least, tried to. There was her answer, as her shoulders sagged heavily and she could barely lift them. “Not…  _ quite. _ ” She looked over the woman with new eyes, a studious and tactical gaze.

The way Vaswani held herself, proudly and prepared, like a fighter in one of the fluid styles - ready to spring forward or back, to bend as needed, but with her chin high. The way she looked around, as if constantly mapping out the surroundings: Fareeha recognized that as how  _ she _ looked at a room, or at least something near it. Despite the lack of armour, the Architech had managed to completely incapacitate a trained soldier in a matter of seconds…

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there, Vaswani?” Pharah mused, raising an eyebrow.

Symmetra stiffened slightly, glancing over out of the sides of her eyes, without turning her head. “Quite. Symmetra will suffice, as well.” She had spent her life being underestimated. She tired of it almost instantly. Fools put far too much stock in appearance, their narrow minds uncomprehending of  _ true _ strength.

‘Symmetra, then,” Pharah sighed slightly, checking at her rocket launcher. Her hands were a little sluggish, but rapidly improving. “Pharah will suffice for me.”

“Of course it will. You provided no other form of address.”

The soldier took a moment to just take a deep breath and hold it, and consider just what it was she was doing with her life.  _ Run around a hostile compound, trying to round up the stuff to make a nuclear bomb… with her. Perhaps the most disagreeable woman I’ve met. _

She let out her held breath in a sigh.  _ And free civilians. _ Again, her eyes flicked to Symmetra. That had been the first explicit aim the woman had mentioned:  _ release the prisoners. _ She hadn’t even  _ mentioned _ retrieving Vishkar’s stolen materials when pressed to explain quickly.

There had been a time, Fareeha was reticent to admit, that she had been less concerned with the loss of a life - particularly collateral damage along the sides. Not  _ un _ concerned, but the mission had always come first in her mind. She’d justified it away, and quite easily - often, the mission if  _ failed _ would result in a lot worse than just one death. Such was the case here: Symmetra was right, whatever these people wanted with that plutonium, it was bad. Probably much worse than a few lost civilians.

Yet… Pharah found herself wanting to avoid any future regrets. Her mother had been quite veiled, in many things, but time brings much perspective and some of those dark looks Pharah remembered made more sense in hindsight. She felt like she understood a little bit better now.

Symmetra stepped forward and knelt next to the guard who Pharah had knocked through the wall a minute or two ago.

“What are you doing?” Pharah stepped closer, and Symmetra turned to look slightly over her shoulder.

“He had not moved in some time. I worried over his survival.” She dropped her head back to the front, to the unconscious man, again. “He is alive, yet.”

“You…  _ worried _ , over his survival?” Pharah chuckled, raising a hand to press against her forehead. “One of the men who captured you? Bound you? As near as I can tell, tortured you? The ones I am now for some reason agreeing to help you  _ stop?” _

“Yes.” Symmetra rose swiftly, whirled angrily and took a step closer, jaw clenched tight and resolve burning in her eyes, but it faltered when she met Pharah’s gaze. She dropped her gaze, a frown overtaking her lips as she tugged her visor off for a moment.

“Sanjay…” she started softly, looking down to the visor and the photon projector in her hands. The tools of her trade as Symmetra, and ones she thanked the universe for every day, every opportunity she was given, as she did now. “He thinks me a fool for it. Perhaps they all do, but I do not care.”

Her gaze rose to meet Pharah’s again, entirely unafraid and uncompromising. “I will kill if my hand is forced, but it takes a truly great amount of force. All things being equal, I would have every person survive any exchange - I am no  _ assassin _ , I am an operative of a different manner, and life…” she dropped her eyes away, to the still and bound (but  _ living)  _ body laying beside her. “Life is precious. It cannot be replaced. Any other thing can be created,  _ re _ created, but life?”

It had been a wish that had cost her some. Appearance, at least, in other’s eyes - but she had long since stopped caring about how she appeared in other’s eyes. They formed their opinions, their snap judgements about who and what a person was, and she knew herself now to be entirely incapable of shifting those assessments. 

She was who and what she was, and she was comfortable with it now - she was Symmetra, and she was Satya Vaswani, and as either she was entirely unique and unparalleled. No other could do what she did, and she knew it.

Pharah’s eyebrows tugged a little closer together and she swallowed slowly, silently. It was perhaps the first thing that Symmetra had done in their brief interactions that Pharah found herself even vaguely agreeing with, really. Certainly the first one she’d found herself respecting much. Even seconding the plan to remain in the compound had been as much a matter of information-gathering as anything else. Nothing was set in stone until they either left the compound, or didn’t.

Now, though, the woman was standing there and begging leniency for the sorts of people who most would say didn’t deserve it in the slightest. There was a lot to be said for justice, but death wasn’t  _ real _ justice. Sometimes it was the closest one could get, perhaps - at the very least, though, she respected the strength of conviction with which the Architech spoke. Pharah opened her mouth to respond, when Symmetra cut her off with a soft laugh.

“Ah, he is regaining consciousness,” she turned back to Pharah for a brief smile, then looked back to the man on the ground. “Hello. Do you remember me? I was your captive for the past few days.”

Then, she raised a foot and stomped heavily down on the man’s ribs with a grunt. Pharah snorted a laugh, unable to think that the guy didn’t deserve it.  _ Justice, too. Or at least retribution. Nice. _ “So, this compassion knows its limits, then?”

“All things know limits save for imagination,” Symmetra replied with a soft smile. “He will heal. Or, he will not - but it is not  _ my _ hand which will decide his fate.”

Pharah hefted her rocket launcher with a shrug and a chuckle. “Well, in an open engagement, I don’t have much option on the deciding of fates… but I’m quite skilled at CQC. Truth be told, I’d rather avoid an excessive death toll as well.”

Symmetra scoffed a short laugh. “It would seem there may be a thing on which we agree then, angel.” She paused and blinked as she heard the words fly from her own mouth, her eyes snapping to Pharah’s as the soldier’s face filled with amusement.

“Did… you just call me angel?” Pharah grinned smugly, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms. “Oh,  _ this _ I simply must hear.”

Symmetra cleared her throat and tugged her uniform a little straighter. “It is of no consequence. When you first burst through the wall, my immediate thought was one of a… guardian angel. Or perhaps an angel of death. It is a cognitive impulse which appears to have stuck fast in my mind.”

“Well, not nearly the worst thing I’ve been called,” Pharah murmured with a smirk and a shrug. “Hell, it’s downright flattering, I might say.”

She still thought Symmetra was controlling, rude, and perhaps a little manipulative as well. It would be important to make clear just  _ who _ was in charge so they could get done swiftly. “If I’m going to guard you effectively, you need to be cautious. Stay behind me. Listen to my commands. We move carefully, but quickly - I’ve hidden the plutonium on them and caused a bit of confusion throughout the camp, but we need to find and free those civilians and provide them with an escape.”

“That will be no difficulty,” Symmetra shook her head dismissively. “I have prepared for just such an eventuality. I can create a teleporter transmitter which will take them instantly to safety outside of the compound’s fences.”

Pharah just shook her head a little, revising everything she’d thought.  _ Run through a hostile compound, freeing civilians and gathering nuclear materials, with a not-wholly-objectionable woman… who can apparently make teleporters. Or at least, believes she can. And calls me her guardian angel. Did I hit my head when I fell? _

She chuckled a little at the thought and shook her head. “Well… I suppose it’s time to begin this madness. Sooner would be better than later - direct me toward these civilians as best you’re able.”

Symmetra nodded and gestured out of the door. The  _ only _ door, through which Pharah had very nearly entered a few minutes ago. The soldier rolled her eyes a little as she pulled her helmet back on.  _ Oh, is that the way? Really? I would never have guessed, little miss Architech… _

 

\---

 

Starting fires didn’t seem like the best idea anymore, knowing that there were innocent civilian captives dotted around. Admittedly, she hadn’t known that at the time, but it was still a fair point. Fareeha could admit to that.

It was more the  _ way _ that Symmetra made the point, that irked her.

“I was  _ not _ recklessly endangering people’s lives,” the soldier growled softly as the two of them crouched behind a wall of crates.

“Well, you certainly were not doing much to  _ preserve _ them,” Symmetra muttered over a scoff.

Pharah caught her arm in hand and tugged her closer.  _ “Listen, _ Symmetra - I didn’t know the full situation, understand? A distraction was required. I made a tactical judgement and I stand by it.”

Symmetra frowned a little, pausing for a moment before she brushed off Pharah’s hand. She hadn’t meant it to be such a divisive statement. It had a tendency to happen, though. “Of course you did, and of course you do.” She nodded slightly, frowning still. “You made a correct decision. It was simply one which endangered lives.”

Pharah stared back in incomprehension, lips parting slowly. The woman couldn’t be serious.

She was, though.

“Oh.” Pharah cleared her throat a little bit, peeking through a sliver of space between two of the crates. Men ran back and forth with buckets of water, trying to control the spreading flames. “I thought you were trying to insult me.”

“Why would I try to do that?”

Pharah glanced over briefly. The Architech  _ did _ sound legitimately confused about it. It didn’t make any  _ sense _ , but it seemed to be the case. “Well… lots of reasons. Power or control, usually. Maybe you’re just a bitch, I don’t know, I just met you.”

Symmetra laughed, brightly but softly, a tiny melody that stretched no further than their hiding place. “Such foolishness. Power through such means demonstrates a severe lack of imagination.”

“Okay then,” Pharah shrugged. She wasn’t sure what else to say to that, and she wasn’t sure how ‘you were recklessly endangering lives with your fires’ was supposed to be anything other than a slight. At the same time - though she hadn’t known Symmetra long - she was coming to the inescapable realization that there were a few things a little different about the woman.

_ Might even have to take the chip off my shoulder, heh. _ She smirked as a cluster of soldiers rushed past and one ran in the opposite direction. “Perfect,” she whispered. “We need information.”

“I  _ know _ we need information,” Symmetra hissed softly, “that is why we intended to capture a soldier and question them. You cannot comment on things you see out there and expect me to follow, when  _ you _ possess access to the only means of sight!”

There was only one little gap between the crates. They’d played ‘rock paper scissors’ to decide who got to look, and the soldier had come out on top. Pharah flashed a grin over to Symmetra. “Still sore over losing?”

Symmetra crossed her arms and huffed. “No. I am merely…” she floundered to cobble together a reasonable end to the sentence, and in failing to do so, demonstrated the truth. She hung her head with a sigh. “Yes.”

Pharah chuckled. “Aww. If it makes you feel better, I’m the undefeated champ around Helix.”

Humming, Symmetra raised her head with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm. That does make me feel better. I could never have hoped to succeed in such a situation.” Her eyes narrowed and flashed toward Pharah in irritation. “Of course, I would also have  _ declined _ to enter  _ into _ such a competition, had I possessed such knowledge beforehand.”

“And I wouldn’t have started the fires if I’d known there were prisoners,” Pharah shrugged, keeping a close eye on the approaching soldier but sparing a second to flash Symmetra a smirk. “Guess we both made mistakes, hmm?”

Symmetra blinked.  _ Hmm. _ “Fair.”

The soldier was closer now, and Pharah just returned a thumbs-up instead of speaking. Maybe this could turn out being a workable relationship after all, for a few hours until it was all sorted out at least. Fareeha doubted she’d be including the Vishkar agent on her christmas mailing list anytime soon, but for a night, she might not be too bad.

Pharah leapt over the crates with a soft grunt, and Symmetra was left alone for a moment to think and consider. It had been an unexpected mission from the start to the present, but such was life sometimes. Unfortunately. Luckily, with a careful combination of preparation and imagination, she was able to weather most storms of chaos - this would be no different.

She took a moment to appreciate the irony of her situation, smiling lightly as there were sounds of a scuffle on the other side of the crates - grunts and smacks and thumps. It was ironic, really; most people lived their day-to-day lives with no problems and few regrets, easily talking to others and forming relationships, wandering through crowds and chaos with smiles on their faces, blissful in their ignorance and sure-footed as mountain goats on the treacherous crags of social interaction.

Yet, they would fall to pieces in a hostage situation, or in combat, or when bombs began to fall.

Symmetra was quite the opposite - a bevy of henchmen with rifles posed her no worry at all, and no pause; she knew immediately how to deal with such a thing. Somebody approaching her at a gathering, however? Her spine still crawled when she thought back to the  _ grievous  _ mistake she’d made in attending last year’s Vishkar Day celebration and mixer. This year she had dropped a great weight on her foot in order to break a toe and gain a medically-mandated absence from that particular sea of horrors.

She forced the thoughts and memories from her mind as they started to propagate hot prickling waves under her skin, particularly her forearms and her scalp. There was a louder thump and she felt the crates behind her shift, thankfully distracting her from those recollections.

Tonight had been unexpected, yes, in many ways - but it would be won, as all the others had. She had the situation under control… and an irritable guardian angel on her side, as well.

Symmetra glanced over her shoulder at the thought of Pharah, though there was nothing to see but crate. She could have peeked through the crack, but she had lost the competition - and her right to look, along with it. Sounds of groans and grunts interspersed those of physical combat. Symmetra wondered how much of the soldier’s irritation was due to natural tendencies, and how much was due to her forced company of the night.

In normal situations, Symmetra knew that much of such a thing rested on her shoulders, in a way - however, while one could not blame one’s scarf for snagging on a thorn, neither could one reasonably expect the thorn to do anything else. Instead, one should only seek to be more careful around thorns.

...although, Symmetra had to admit that something about it had her seeming more thorny than she had in a long time. Some odd combination of anticipation and anxiety, one that was commonplace in some situations but not ones like this - she didn’t know why she was so nervous around Pharah. So nervous under those dark eyes and within reach of those strong arms.

Symmetra’s head tilted softly to the side in thought as the crate was shoved several inches to one side. She  _ was _ nervous around Pharah, and she was presenting substantially less well for it, causing frictions. It was an inescapable fact, now that it had occurred to her.

It was difficult not to blame the guardian angel for it.

Pharah dragged the man over the crates, panting heavily and kneeling to the ground, one hand clamped heavily over his mouth. 

“So I’d  _ thought- _ ” she sucked in a deep breath, glaring at Symmetra but hidden behind her helmet, “that we were going to incapacitate him  _ together. _ Your little machine would have been  _ quite  _ helpful.”

“Oh.” Symmetra frowned slightly, eyebrows furrowing. “You said nothing of the sort. You appear to have succeeded, regardless.”

“I s- I  _ said-” _ Pharah cut off with a breathless laugh, shaking her head. “I called your name  _ five times! _ How did you not hear me?”

Frown deepening, Symmetra shook her head, her eyes drifting distantly. “I was deep in thought. I must have missed that. I apologize.”

“You apo- oh for the love of-” Pharah sighed. “Yeah, okay. You know what? That’s- that is fine. It’s all fine.”

“I- I am anxious around you.”

Pharah quirked an eyebrow, tapping a button to lift the golden visor up and away so she could get a clearer view of Symmetra’s face. There was a little bit of blood smeared on the visor, obscuring her view - but as it lifted away, Symmetra’s expression looked the same: a sort of surprised, sad confusion.

“You make me nervous,” Symmetra reiterated, frowning a little bit more deeply and meeting Pharah’s eyes hesitantly.

The soldier wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly the first time, but it was undeniable now. The only question now was what the hell she was  _ talking  _ about. Pharah’s eyebrows drew a little closer together as she looked deeper into those golden-brown eyes that suddenly seemed to be full of so much, emotions that whirled and clashed. A sort of vulnerability she hadn’t noticed before.

“Stop it.”

Symmetra looked almost as surprised at her own words as Pharah did.

“Did-” Pharah blinked. “Did you just tell  _ me _ to stop it?”

“I-” Symmetra briefly covered her mouth with her hand, as if afraid of what it might release next. She hesitantly peeled her fingers away from her lips. “I would appear to have done so.”

There was a long moment that consisted of little other than Pharah staring at Symmetra, and Symmetra staring right back. Neither of them blinked nor broke eye contact.

“I’m-” Pharah started, clearing her throat and frowning abruptly. “I am going to interrogate our captive now. We’ll come back to this in a minute.”

Symmetra nodded wordlessly, then locked eyes with the frightened-looking soldier. “Where are the civilians being held, and what is your purpose with them?”

_...or, you can interrogate him, fine. _ Pharah rolled her eyes but didn’t speak, only tightened her grip on the man’s arm and shook him, releasing her hold on his mouth. It would be a decent way of setting up the interrogation, anyway - probably much better than her trying to do the whole thing herself.

The captive tried to call for help. Pharah grinned.  _ Oh, I was hoping for that. _

Before the shout made it all the way out of his mouth, she’d clamped it back in with a hand and jerked her other arm around to drive an armoured elbow into his ribs, forcing a weak-sounding wheeze out of his nose.

Symmetra didn’t blink, and kept her eyes locked with the captive’s. “She is quite strong, is she not? Entirely capable of breaking your bones - and I daresay,  _ eager.” _ She grinned a little, glancing up to meet Pharah’s slightly surprised look, but then she returned the grin and threw in a dark chuckle for effect, squeezing the man’s arm tighter.

“Now,” Symmetra spoke softly, leaning in. “We have not much time. Rather,  _ we _ ,” she pointed back and forth between Pharah and herself, “have plenty of time.” Her finger settled on the man’s sternum, prodding.  _ “You, _ do not. I am unsure how much longer my compatriot can restrain herself.”

Pharah growled in the man’s ear as she slowly released the hand clamped tight over his mouth. “ _ Quietly,” _ she warned.

The man sucked in a quick breath and bit it back behind his teeth, eyes full of fear and determination. “I tell you nothing.”

“Pharah,” Symmetra tipped her head, and the guardian twisted the man’s arm roughly. Symmetra considered for a moment, then raised her hands. They spun around each other in an intricate dance, and then a jagged knife coalesced within her prosthetic palm - three-bladed, and looking very,  _ very _ vicious and quite intensely painful. “Do you believe this would be of any aid?” She offered it out with a raised eyebrow.

Beads of sweat dripped from the man’s forehead as Pharah reached out a hand to take the knife, and as a sadistic chuckle rumbled deep in her chest, he snapped. “Alright! Alright just- don’t-  _ don’t. _ They’re being held in the warehouse. The tunnels start there. You’ll never gain access to them though!” He grinned defiantly. “Your snipers will never be able to hold us off long enough for you to hack your way in, and I don’t have the codes, anyway!”

“Then we have no further use for you, do we?” Symmetra raised an eyebrow, smiling as all of the wind leapt from the man’s sails and he whimpered again. She raised her photon projector and drained his energy until he slumped to the ground - far more depleted than Pharah had been, and entirely limp. “He will regain consciousness in several hours. Six to eight, likely.”

“Hmm,” Pharah shrugged, standing up easily and flipping the knife in her hand, catching it by the hilt. “Nicely done, with that. Worked out pretty well.”

“Thank you,” Symmetra nodded, standing and brushing the dust off of her uniform. “You as well. Much appreciated.”

“Now, what’s this about  _ I _ need to stop making  _ you  _ nervous?”

Symmetra’s eyes widened a little. “It-” she cut off with a slight cough. “I  _ am _ nervous, and it is increasing my tendency to… say the wrong thing. Or perhaps, more accurately, to say a thing  _ in the wrong manner.” _ Her eyes shot to Pharah’s almost accusingly. “It is quite frustrating.”

“...and… it’s somehow  _ my _ fault?” Pharah raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“You are the focus of the nervousness, so, yes,” Symmetra nodded, then frowned slightly as she heard her own words. “Wait. That is hardly fair.”

Shaking her head, Pharah chuckled and held the knife out - grip-first - to Symmetra. “Not really, is it? Whatever, it’s- it’s fine.” It was becoming pretty clear that Symmetra was probably just one of those people. Resting bitch face, resting bitch voice, resting bitch personality, maybe - she didn’t seem to have any real malice behind it, though. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“I appreciate that,” Symmetra murmured softly, following her guardian angel as she led the way to the warehouse. “I will try to do the same.”

Pharah nodded softly, then glanced over her shoulder. “I can restrain myself plenty well, for your information.”

Symmetra didn’t place the comment for a moment, then laughed lightly. “Oh, the captive? That was said only for the benefit of coercion. I have no doubts in your capabilities.” Vishkar only ever sent the best. If they had hired this angel, then she would be entirely capable.

“Oh.” Pharah grinned a little as she looked back to the front, heading toward the warehouse for the next step in their impromptu (and perhaps, insane) mission. “Thanks.”  _ Might not actually be too bad after all…  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehe, I liked this one - I like it all, actually, it's pretty fun. I'm going to enjoy knocking them each off-balance a little because, well, they're really very different people - but they're also going to realize that different doesn't mean wrong, of course.
> 
> Don't want to give away too many spoilers, of course! Buuuut, it should be pretty fun :D
> 
> Hope you're liking it so far! Hope you keep liking it, too!
> 
> C'mon back next time when Pharah gets a better overview of Symmetra's combat capabilities, and runs into a shadowy third party. Unfortunately for all, explosions tend to attract soldiers.


	3. Unknown Party Oversight

The warehouse wasn’t overly far away. Fareeha couldn’t help but think that she could have made it _much_ faster on her own, but alas, that was not the case - and fast or not, she managed to make it there with Symmetra without incident.

They ducked behind crates when small clusters of soldiers rushed past, and one man on his own even spotted them - but between the general shouts filling the air along with sirens and alarms, there was no way he could be heard before the pair had dealt with him.

Now, they stood at one of many doors to the warehouse. Arguing.

Pharah shook her head. “We _cannot_ simply wander in there with no clue of what to expect.”

“You did as much to find me in the other building.” Symmetra crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows as if daring Pharah to deny it.

 _“Yes,”_ Pharah growled, eyes narrow, “I _did,_ but that was a much smaller building. It might have contained a couple dozen soldiers. This warehouse could have hundreds, or turrets, or- or _tanks_ , or-”

“Tanks,” Symmetra scoffed, shaking her head. “Ridiculous. Regardless, it matters not - I can shield us from whatever threat.”

“Oh, sure you can,” Pharah rolled her eyes, unseen behind her visor.

“You _doubt_ my abilities?” Symmetra’s hissed words came out coldly, and she turned abruptly and walked off. Pharah made a noise and moved to grab onto her, but Symmetra only walked about ten steps before stopping and turning around, arms crossed.

“Go on, then,” the Architech prompted - but _what_ she was prompting for, Pharah couldn’t guess. “Fire when ready.”

 _Fire?_ “Fire?” Pharah frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You doubt my abilities.” Symmetra glared back angrily, defiantly, jaw clenched and golden eyes burning. “Launch off one of your pitiful rockets then, and permit me to demonstrate the _magnificence_ of hard-light.”

“Hard fu-” Parah cut herself off in a groan, dropping her head and shaking it. “And my rockets aren’t pitiful. And I’m not shooting you with one.”

“Why not?”

“Because!” Pharah laughed abruptly. “Because you are my _target!_ My sole interest in this venture, you- _you_ are the one I am here to protect and to save, _Symmetra_ , so I refuse to risk any danger to that goal by _firing an explosive at you!”_

Symmetra stood silently for a moment, lips pursed gently in thought. After a few short moments, she nodded her head. “Very well.” Pharah sighed in relief. “A crate, then.”

“A cra- a _crate?_ ” Pharah stared, doubting for the dozenth time that she’d heard the woman correctly. “You want me to shoot a crate with a rocket.”

“Yes,” Symmetra nodded, pointing. “That one.”

Pharah stared for a few more moments, but it was clear that Symmetra would not move until she was either satisfied or forced. Relenting with a shrug, Pharah sighed and took up a bead on the indicated crate, roughly halfway between the two of them and off to the side - not close enough to pose any danger.

“Alright. Are you ready?”

“I am always prepared,” Symmetra responded.

 _Sure._ Pharah sighed and rolled her eyes again. _Sure you are._ “Firing in three… two… one…” She depressed the trigger, easily absorbing the shunt of the launcher’s recoil. The rocket flew swiftly and exploded, and Pharah stood solidly and unflinching, waiting for the expected shower of wood chips.

It didn’t come. There were no wood chips. A rush of heat and pressure, bright flames - and something else, something different, something new. Pharah had fired off hundreds of these rockets, and never seen those blue sparkles. A second or two later, when the smoke and flame cleared, a shining blue projection of some sort was surrounding the undamaged crate.

Pharah stepped closer in awe. A thin trail led from the shield, as it seemed to be, back to Symmetra’s hand. She stood there looking quite smug, and that spoiled Pharah’s awe in a hurry. It was replaced by a sort of begrudging admission of skill. “Alright… I’ll admit, that’s an impressive trick.”

“And I will admit that it was good to hear that I am your concern in this venture,” Symmetra spoke softly with a nod. It had felt somewhat odd to hear it, and felt somewhat odd to recount it, but pleasant. Dark or not, this angel was formidable - it was good for their positions to be solidified. Symmetra had worried that Pharah might be in this for money or for her company, more than for _right_ or for Symmetra. She wasn’t necessarily convinced on the matter just yet, but it was something.

There had been more words Pharah had wanted to say. They somewhat fell out of her head at Symmetra’s soft interruption, though, and left Pharah open-mouthed and silent for a few seconds as she looked back. Wide, golden-brown eyes that seemed gently confused yet also resolute. It was a fascinating look, and distracted Pharah for a moment before she realized she’d been staring for too long at this woman’s eyes.

“Sorry,” she dropped her gaze abruptly - then realized that her eyes weren’t even _visible_ behind her visor, and chuckled gently. “Your _safety_ is my primary concern here, Symmetra. I… must admit, you have me convinced of other matters afoot. I’ll do whatever I can to help these civilians, and to deprive these men of whatever weapon or leverage they hope to gain through their nuclear ventures - but your safety is _still_ my primary concern.”

Symmetra nodded softly. Reading the truthfulness of others had never been a strong point of hers, it seemed practically impossible. She always _thought_ she knew whether people were telling lies, it just seemed to be at odds with reality far too often for comfort. It was easiest to presume that everyone was either lying, or a fool.

This Pharah, though, she really didn’t seem to be a fool. She didn’t seem to be lying. Perhaps the guardian angel was earning her halo back.

“I believe you,” Symmetra confirmed with a nod. “Thank you.”

“You’re… welcome,” Pharah responded half-reflexively, not really certain what she was being thanked for. Protection, maybe, or even just communication - but she was pretty sure Symmetra hadn’t thanked her for _freeing_ her, so this seemed a little odd by comparison.

Another alarm started to sound, and shouting of renewed intensity, and Pharah’s head drifted off to one side as a thoughtful frown came to her lips. _It sounds like they’re coming this way…_

Her eyes dropped to the rocket launcher in her hands. “Right. Damn.” She sighed swiftly, shortly, at herself, and then looked up to Symmetra. “Congratulations. Few people are able to agitate me to the point where I stop making tactically sound decisions.” It had been stupid to set off explosions.

“Oh.” Symmetra blinked. It seemed to be an odd thing to be congratulated for, given that it was not what she’d intended. “It was not my intent, but thank you, I suppose. It is good to be congratulated.”

Pharah let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head with a smirk on her lips. It wasn’t even frustrating, truth be told, it was just almost funny. “Follow me - we’ll lead them off and lose them, so we can circle back.”

“Could we not simply enter the warehouse and forge onward?” Symmetra didn’t follow as Pharah started to walk away, and the soldier turned back with an open gesture at the building.

“We’d be _trapped_ in there, and they could easily smoke us out or just rush in - we need as few people as possible in there, and… well, we need more support, too, but we’re not getting that, so we do what we can with what we have. Now come.”

Symetra frowned and stood, and didn’t look convinced.

“Still got that fist ready, Vaswani,” Pharah sighed. “I’m here to keep you safe. _Let me.”_

With a roll of her eyes, Symmetra relented and moved to follow the armoured angel. “Threats are an odd way to ensure my safety - or perhaps I should say to _enforce_ it?” She grinned a little.

The difference was semantic, if even extant: a virtuous situation needed no freedom in the matter, it was a farce and a falsehood. No person would choose to avoid a positive situation, so it did not _matter_ if they had a choice in the situation; their choice would only ever be the enforced option anyway.

“Was that a joke?” Pharah chuckled as Symmetra drew up even with her elbow. “That sounded like a joke!”

“Things often sound as they are,” Symmetra smirked. “From myself? They _always_ do.”

“Mm, good to know,” Pharah murmured as she ducked around a crate. “Now, I’m going to draw them off that way and circle back - hide here in these crates.”

Symmetra frowned in protest. “A moment ago you were saying that _we_ would be the ones drawing their attentions away!”

“Yes, and the plan changed,” Pharah sighed. “Just hide here, it’s safer.”

“Ah yes,” Symmetra muttered, “I keep forgetting that you are the one with the hard-light shield and an easy manner of incapacitating people at moderate distances, of course.” Despite her words of protest, she did clamber over two of the crates to slip into the middle of the stack with a smirk.

“Exactly,” Pharah nodded. “Silly thing to forget, really - big tactical advantage, those abilities. Important to keep in mind!”

With that, she turned and jogged off, and had just a moment to let the words rattle around in her head and wonder whether she was making a big mistake.

 

\---

 

 _Incognito._ Pharah sighed as another bullet streaked past nearby and she dodged out from behind the wall she was crouched behind, loosing off a rocket that streaked and exploded fairly harmlessly on the ground. A couple of the soldiers would have some burns or shrapnel wounds, but nothing fatal. The rocket launcher really never had been intended as an ‘incapacitation’ weapon - but, then, incapacitation wasn’t really her goal here anyway. It was _distraction._

It was also _working._ The soldiers seemed very, very distracted - shooting at her and shouting back and forth. She popped out and launched off a concussive rocket that flung four of them back heavily against a wall, and chuckled triumphantly as she crouched again.

Her jets kicked on and flung her forward, streaking along the ground and throwing up a few sparks. They saw that move, and bullets followed her path, but she expected as much.

Admittedly, she didn’t expect the grenade.

 _“Antabah!”_ Pharah didn’t have an opportunity to question the shouted warning in Arabic that came from behind her, before a small metal cylinder bounced off of a piece of equipment and fell to the ground a few feet away.

Her eyes widened for an instant as she scrambled to her feet and flung herself over the low wall. Bullets greeted her, pinging off her armour, but she threw herself to the ground and let the wall absorb the grenade’s explosion before she snapped up to a crouch and launched off a few rockets. At least one of them definitely died, but she wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

As soon as she started to return fire, they ducked back to cover, but the wall behind her was destroyed now and she had nowhere to go - or rather, she _would_ have had nowhere to go, previously. Some things had improved since her days in the military, though.

The Raptora suit was impressive on the ground, but in the air it was an outright phenomenon, gorgeous and deadly. As she leapt off of the ground, she opened up with a salvo of small rockets, meant to intimidate and pin down a whole position as much as they were meant to kill - and it gave her an opportunity to glance around for the warning voice. It had come from behind her, toward the fence, and-

 _There!_ Her visor picked out movement and she let off a rocket or two from her launcher, hovering, and then a concussive one as well to add to the chaos. Then she tilted over and gave a little spurt on her jets, launching herself effortlessly back and over the complex’s perimeter fence toward the movement she’d spotted.

She left behind the shouts and gunshots - the second she cut off her jets, she was invisible in the night’s darkness. Hopefully, the soldiers would believe that she’d just run off and escaped.

When she landed heavily on the ground, the tall grasses were matted down in a convenient spot. On top of a little rise, an area just about the size of a person was flattened, and Pharah’s jaw clenched up as her eyes darted around. _Sniper._

The soldiers in the compound had been shouting about snipers, and their captive had said the same. She’d chalked it up to paranoia or guesswork, but maybe there _was_ something to it. Cautiously, she stepped forward, intending to follow the trail.

She didn’t get much of an opportunity to inspect it, though. Something nudged her fairly firmly in the back of the neck and she grunted. It felt like just about the right size to be the barrel of a rifle. Pharah sighed, dropping her rocket launcher. She always had the wrist, and of course her own hands and feet, if things came to a fight. The launcher wouldn’t be any good this close anyway.

“Good girl.” The voice was either electronically modulated or electronically produced - either an omnic or a human who was trying to go unidentified. “Now, hands on the back of your head. Turn around slowly.”

Gritting her teeth, Pharah raised her hands very slowly and interlaced her fingers behind her helmet. She turned around hesitantly, and what she saw shed no further light on who this sniper really was. They held their rifle in one hand, a weapon unlike Pharah had seen before, and appeared to be aiming some sort of wrist-mounted launcher at her as well, with the other hand.

They wore a hood over what was either their face if they were an omnic, or their mask if they were a human. Dark and inscrutable, with three bright lines forming a triangle on it.

“I am the Shrike,” they spoke, electronic voice humming gently. “You are Captain Amari of Helix Security, and this is a sleep dart.”

“Don’t!” Pharah gasped, keeping her hands behind her head. “Please, I’ve- I’ve been knocked out too many times today already.” She chuckled softly, trying to allay some of her underlying fears. “You warned me down there.”

The Shrike’s head twisted just slightly, not enough to look over their shoulder and back toward the compound but enough to hint it. “Ah, so you _did_ hear that. Not completely tactically inept, then.”

“Tactically-” Pharah cut off in a growled sigh. “I’m getting enough of _that_ from my new partner as well, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Maybe I would,” the Shrike shrugged a shoulder. “You’re hardly in a position to make requests. New partner, is she? Since when does Helix work with Vishkar?”

“It’s really none of your business,” Pharah muttered darkly. “Why did you warn me?”

“It’s really none of your business,” the electronic voice shook with a chuckle as they responded. Pharah didn’t like being unable to see any eyes. She couldn’t tell truth, couldn’t tell intent, couldn’t tell anything. “We might have a common goal.”

“And what does an international bounty hunter want in a shitty militia compound like this, hmm?” Pharah _really_ wished she could’ve seen the look in their eyes when she revealed that. If they even had eyes.

The Shrike just laughed briefly. “Ah, so you’ve done your homework!”

“Your name’s come up,” Pharah smirked. “You’re worth quite a lot of money, you know.”

“I’m worth far more at your back, than in your pocket,” they retorted.

“Ah, and what _possible_ reason could I have to not trust you, hmm?” Pharah inquired sarcastically, tipping her helmet down toward the sniper’s trained rifle.

“Mmm, perhaps the grenade I warned you about?” Electronic voice or not, Pharah could definitely hear a smirk in there. “Or the fact that I haven’t shot you yet? The fact that I let you find me at all?”

“I’m sure it was all very intentional for you,” Pharah muttered dryly, shaking her head. “Don’t suppose that thing has thermal cameras?”

There was a pause, during which the soldier wondered yet again whether it was a helmet or a head. The Shrike wasn’t exactly _well-_ known, but they were known to Helix at least. A high-priced bounty hunter who had some crossover in operational zones, and had risen to Helix’s attention. Officially, all staff were discouraged from any attempts to cash in on the bounty hunter’s substantial reward.

Unofficially? The _smart_ ones wouldn’t have dared to try anyway. Nobody got that kind of a dollar tag on their name unless they were a formidable opponent indeed.

 _Or, perhaps, a formidable ally._ _For the night, at least._

“It might.”

“Might they be able to see into that warehouse?” Pharah tipped her head.

“They might.”

Pharah paused. “Any chance I could talk you into giving me the once-over?”

“I can’t link in to your radio,” the Shrike stated, shaking their head.

Pharah chuckled. “Mm, well, you’ve either got ears or microphones and that’s all I’d care about anyway - after all, you can’t provide much cover once we head into the warehouse.”

The Shrike’s head tipped to the side slightly. “The captives.”

“Yes, and whatever their secret project is underne-”

An electronic laugh from the Shrike interrupted her. “Whatever it- oh, you don’t know yet? Oh dear, silly girl, you really _have_ jumped down the rabbit hole, haven’t you? Well, hold on, Alice, because it’s about to get a whole lot deeper.”

They didn’t make any move to lower their weapon yet, though.

Slowly, hesitantly, Pharah let her fingers slide apart. The Shrike made no hostile move, no move at all in fact except for to seemingly breathe, which suggested that they were human - but then, any clever omnic could easily fake breathing to throw people off the trail, so it answered nothing. Pharah pulled one hand out from behind her head enough to thumb at the control on the side off her helmet, visor lifting up and out of the way to reveal her eyes.

“You knew my name. You’ll know my reputation. You’ll know that I’m trustworthy, and I give you my word that I will not take you in for bounty, that you will go free at the end of the night if it is within my power, and that I will do what I can to ensure your safety.”

There was a long beat of silence as Pharah stared back at the glowing triangle, hoping that whatever sight they possessed was located in that general area. She tried to read anything in it, but there was nothing to read.

“Interesting tattoo.” More silence, with each of them refusing to move or give anything away, before the Shrike sighed slightly and tipped their head. “Persuasive, I’ll give you that. I’m _not_ going into that warehouse, there are too many things that could go wrong, but I can give you my word that no soldiers will follow you through the door.”

It was tempting to say that their word would be worth nothing. On the other hand, Pharah knew that that would be pretty pointed - and provoking one of the more infamous bounty hunters in the world wasn’t a very good plan. _Not tactically sound, ha._

Pharah sighed and ran an armoured hand over her helmet, as one might fingers through their hair. “Well, it’s better than a kick in the teeth.” There was a thrill to leaping into the unknown - it was easy to sit on the bench and worry over it, but once she got into the field? Once she had the wind at her cheeks and the smell of jet exhaust and flame in her nostrils, when she saw people who needed a shield (or a sword of retribution), it was so hard to hold back.

She held out her hand. The Shrike didn’t hesitate before they took it and shook, then nodded back over their shoulder. “Now, go on. There are about three dozen soldiers in there, primarily central: they’ve erected a structure in there. Prisoners in the middle. Watch your ass and - _do_ try not to get surprised by any more grenades, hmm?”

With a sigh, Pharah shook her head and extended her visor back into place, taking a swift knee to pick up her rocket launcher. She didn’t bother giving a warning before she throttle up her jets with a smirk, flying off into the night and not caring in the slightest whether the bounty hunter’s ridiculous cape got a little ruffled by jet-wash.

 

\---

 

As she jogged back toward the crates where she’d left Symmetra, Pharah first noticed the several bodies lying around on the floor. That was worrying, and her gut tensed up on concern - but it was quickly spoiled by confusion when she noted several small white spheres dotted around on the crates and walls.

“Have you successfully distracted the soldiers from our location?” Symmetra’s disembodied voice came from the stack of crates where she’d hidden.

“I- yes. What are those?” Pharah stepped closer, hesitantly, to one of the little orbs. It appeared to float a few inches above a small docking platform of some sort, and had a lens which rotated to face her.

“Turrets. This was hardly a defensible position.”

“It… was a _concealed_ position,” Pharah protested in a sigh as Symmetra started to climb out of her hiding spot. “Which was entirely spoiled by the turrets. This is now, hmm, I’d say the second most obvious location in the camp beside the ones which are _actively on fire.”_

“Yes, and it is also the safest,” Symmetra responded simply, brushing a bit of dirt off of her shoulder and hopping down to the ground gracefully.

“Where were you hiding turrets, anyway? You don’t exactly have any pockets.” Pharah looked her over with a frown. The outfit didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, exactly - which certainly wasn’t unwelcome, it just didn’t seem to leave any opportunity for surprises like this. Particularly not a half-dozen pomegranate-sized turrets.

The Architech’s legs were exposed save for a pair of leggings that went halfway up her thighs. Her metal arm was completely uncovered, and could perhaps have held a few small things in compartments, perhaps, but that was the only storage space to think of. No pockets, no pouches, no backpack or anything of the sort - Pharah didn’t see how she could possibly have been carrying anything other than maybe a few knives, a couple of small guns perhaps, maybe a hidden explosive or two if she was creative.

Symmetra sighed a chuckle, shaking her head with a smile. People thought they knew so much of the world - as a girl, it had frightened and bothered her to seem to know so little. Now? Now she knew they were all fools. Perhaps there was some she did not understand, yes, but it was of no consequence and hardly any different from the rest of them.

“There is no need to conceal that which does not exist,” Symmetra responded, intentionally cryptic with a smirk as she turned away and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Pharah had just enough time to grit her teeth and step forward, preparing to prompt for further explanation - but she never got to say a word before Symmetra raised her hands and swirled them around.

In front of her, on the wall, light glowed and shimmered, and then seemed to coalesce into a shape - one of those little turrets, bobbing gently. Symmetra reached out her prosthetic hand, the glow in her palm dying away as she stroked a fingertip over the orb’s surface with a smile.

“Hard-light,” Pharah mused, shaking her head. “Time goes by, I find myself wishing I’d been better briefed on your abilities beforehand. That’s… incredibly impressive. Almost unthinkably.” She took a pace forward and reached out to touch the turret.

It was entirely solid, as solid as that knife had been earlier - but a _knife_ was one thing. Pharah could sort of wrap her head around making a chunk of solid material, but this little thing… it must have circuitry, batteries, some sort of a repulsion drive (perhaps magnetic, she thought) - it was an incredibly complex mechanism, certainly, packed into a tight little sphere. Yet, Symmetra had produced it from _nowhere_ in only a second.

She grinned down at the orb in awe, then turned that grin to Symmetra and found her golden-brown eyes already looking back.

“It is good that you appreciate what I can offer,” Symmetra nodded before frowning slightly and clearing her throat. That had sounded abrupt again. Her eyes flicked from Pharah’s, to the orb, to the rocket launcher, and back to meet the angel’s gaze again. “I mean, rather, that…”

Symmetra abandoned her words for a second, letting out the breath instead in a sigh. A moment of thought later, she gave it another try. “I was concerned that you might think me helpless or foolish. It’s an uncommon worry for me, at this point, and… it is good to know that it was misplaced.”

Pharah paused for a moment, then chuckled and nudged at Symmetra’s arm lightly with one elbow. “There, see? You said a thing and I didn’t want to punch you at all! That wasn’t that hard, right?” Symmetra sighed and rolled her eyes but Pharah laughed and laid a hand on her shoulder, pre-empting any retorts.

“Look, it- that makes sense. I am realizing that you’re definitely _not_ helpless - headstrong, maybe blunt, and perhaps… of a different tactical mindset than me,” Symmetra smirked as Pharah chuckled and continued to talk, “but there’s more than one way to win a game of chess. Different doesn’t mean wrong.”

The soldier sighed. “Even if I’m more used to people taking orders, than an equal. I’m pretty sure both ‘headstrong’ and ‘blunt’ are words people have used to describe me anyway - although,” she let out a laugh, “I’m equally sure that what they meant was ‘bitch’, but I hardly care.”

Symmetra didn’t respond immediately, the snarky smirk on her lips replaced by a slight frown as her eyebrows drew inward. Pharah looked at her curiously, hand still on the Architech’s shoulder, and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Did you… truly mean that?” Symmetra’s question was soft, hesitant - and a little confusing to Pharah at first.

 _Mean what? That I don’t think she’s helpless? Or that-_ Pharah’s eyes widened slightly as she realized that she’d called Symmetra a few things, and then gone on to say that she was sure people used those words to call her a bitch. “N- I didn’t mean that I was calling _you_ a bitch, just that when peop-”

“No,” Symmetra cut her off with a shake of her head, reaching across herself to grab at Pharah’s forearm. Her eyes burned intensely with something the soldier couldn’t quite decipher. _“Equal._ Did you mean that?”

Pharah flicked her visor back again so she could meet Symmetra’s eyes properly. Normally, it wouldn’t seem like much of a question. Here though, it was clear that it meant a lot, and Pharah paused for a second to consider it.

“Yes.” She nodded once, holding eye contact with Symmetra. “I meant it. Honestly, I’d prefer you to still listen to me, but I can’t carry you through this and ensure your safety. That means I need to trust you to hold your own.” Her eyes flicked toward the warehouse door. “I’ll need somebody on my side in there.”

Then, Pharah dropped her hand from Symmetra’s shoulder, holding it out to be shaken instead. “Partners?”

Symmetra looked at that offered hand for a moment. She’d had her doubts, throughout the night - many of them, but she found her mind consistently leaping back to that first perfect moment. That shock of rubble and plaster flying inward under Pharah’s assault, guard wrapped up in her arms, a strong smile the only part of her face that was visible. Symmetra saw it like a photograph frozen in her mind. The arrival of her guardian angel.

She took the hand and shook it, eyes locked with Pharah’s. Dark eyes, a strong gaze. A strong hand. “Partners.” She stepped toward the door then, and charged up an orb of energy on the three prongs of her photon projector. When she released it, it melted the lock on the door - melted the handle, as well, and much of the rest of the surrounding metal.

Pharah gave the door a solid kick and it flew inward, red-hot chunks of metal scattering. Symmetra took a pace and then reconsidered, waving her prosthetic arm with a bow - but not solely as a gesture. As she waved, she conjured into being a floating orb that projected a wide, ovoid shield and gently drifted forward.

“After you,” Symmetra smirked as she stood from her bow.

“Mmm, quite the lady, aren’t we?” Pharah murmured wryly, grinning and taking the lead. With the shield in front, and Symmetra at her back, she found that she felt quite safe; it only sharpened the excitement she felt. Things were about to get very interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww, they're becoming friends! Also, The Shrike! What's gonna happen there, eh? :D
> 
> I'm liking this, and quite looking forward to it moving forward, too - friction's fun, but so's coalition, and hopefully I can strike a bit of a balance between them! It's a nice change to be writing Symmetra, having grown up with Vishkar as she did canonically; more confident, more self-assured. She knows herself and she knows her strengths, and she has no qualms about employing them.
> 
> Hmm. I thought I'd have more to say, but it's slipped my mind, heh. Hope you folks enjoyed it!
> 
> Come on back next time when the partners head into the warehouse. What'll they find? Dozens of soldiers? Turrets? Tanks? Only one way to see!


	4. Going Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside the warehouse, Pharah finds a lot of joy in Symmetra's shields. There's quite a fight to get in to the centre, where the captives are being held - and that's not the end of the troubles, either, as the crowds of people pose quite an issue in their own right (at least, for a certain Architech). Luckily, she's got an angel at her back to help, and it strikes a realization in her of some of her feelings.

Inside the warehouse, it was clear that the soldiers had made some modifications. Cargo containers were stacked as makeshift walls and structures, and machinery was scattered about everywhere.

Bullets started to fly the second Pharah poked her head around a corner, but Symmetra’s shield floating in front of her stopped them. 

“Your rockets will be able to pass through the barrier,” Symmetra murmured over her shoulder, and Pharah grinned.

“Oh,  _ will _ they, now? Wonderful…”

She launched off a rocket which shunted a cargo container back a few feet and knocked the five men who’d been on top of it to their knees. One toppled off entirely with a shout.. Another rocket sent a stack of sandbags flying as the soldiers taking cover behind them shouted and flung themselves away.

Pharah had to admit, she could get used to fighting behind a shield like this. It absorbed every enemy bullet, but let her own shots through with no resistance at all. The only downside was that it seemed to continue moving, regardless of what else happened - and only on its original course.

The shield continued out further into the open space of the warehouse, but Pharah refused to follow it. It was only so large, and couldn’t protect them from every angle; she stopped next to a thick steel support pillar and stood as bullets pinged off of the other side of the beam.

“I shall deploy a stationary one,” Symmetra offered, stepping to the side and crouching next to Pharah’s legs. A moment later, a blue barrier blossomed forth from her hands and domed forward.

With a chuckle, Pharah stepped out from behind the thick metal support beam. She took a second just to appreciate the situation - as bullets flew harmlessly into the energy barrier, leaving little electrical ripples at their impact, and she was able to just stand and get a good thorough tactical outlook.

On top of which, it was just  _ fun _ to be standing there, invincible and on top of the world. Being in the air made her feel beyond harm enough - this? This was a whole different level of invulnerability, and she  _ loved _ it.

It gave her the opportunity, too, to notice an overhead crane gantry - no doubt, the one the soldiers had used to arrange all of these shipping crates. In fact, it still held one aloft, and Pharah’s grin just widened as she raised her launcher and took aim. She loosed off a rocket, and then a second, and then simply watched with a smile on her lips.

The rockets slammed into the crane’s supports which hel massive rails up against the ceiling of the warehouse. Or at least, that’s what they  _ had _ done before they were struck by a pair of high-explosive incendiary rockets. Now, they rattled and shook as the weight on them strained under gravity’s pull.

Pharah grinned at the shouts as the massive metal brackets gave way entirely. The ones at the far end of the crane’s huge rail twisted and bent under forces they were never designed to deal with, and the whole thing came crashing down beautifully slowly - the suspended crate swung in and slammed into four which had been stacked to form a wall on the ground, knocking soldiers off of the tops and sending them jumping off of the sides as the giant steel containers toppled like a Jenga tower.

The deafening din of steel smashing to the ground was overlaid with Pharah’s laughter, but both were shortly cut off entirely by a massive explosion.

Symmetra flinched as smoke enveloped them - thankfully, inserts in her ears reacted to ambient noise levels and dampened them, keeping them from being excessively loud. She hoped momentarily that the guardian angel’s helmet had something similar, but she did not have long to devote to that concern. The explosion had depleted her shield worryingly, and it flickered slightly.

Pharah noticed the barrier flickering, as smoke and flame surrounded them. She was thankful for her helmet’s noise-dampening, and momentarily worried over Symmetra’s ears - an explosion that close could have ruptured her eardrums, but Pharah didn’t have long that she could worry about that. There was the larger concern of where that explosion had come from.

The smoke swirled, and Pharah started to hear a worrying rumbling noise as her helmet adjusted to the new levels of noise. As the smoke cleared, her fears were confirmed - a large, heavily armed and armoured tank sat about two hundred feet away, poking around the edge of the now-partially-toppled structure of shipping crates.

“I  _ told _ you they might have tanks!” Pharah ducked back behind the support beam, glancing down to Symmetra’s wide eyes.

“The facts do not change the improbability of the situation!” she protested swiftly, looking up in worry. “My shield is unable to sustain a repetition of-”

“Yeah, I figured,” Pharah muttered quickly, slapping at her launcher and a few panels on the Raptora to double-check them. “Stay here.” She hesitated for another moment, crouching swiftly and laying a hand on the Architech’s shoulder, tapping her helmet to retract the visor.

“Symmetra.” She met the woman’s eyes intensely. “My survival does not matter. Yours  _ does. _ If I die, you get out of here - you  _ run _ , and you tell Helix what happened. Find Tariq, find Saleh, tell them their Captain wanted them to sort this mess out. You’ll have your backup.” Her eyes flicked nervously out toward the edge of the massive support beam. “...hopefully I’ll be able to tell them myself. Anyway. Good luck.”

“C- I-” Symetra stammered as Pharah stood and lowered her visor. “I fail to see how  _ I _ am the one who requires luck!”

“That was to myself,” the soldier chuckled, shaking her head gently. She felt no resistance as her jets kicked in and launched her out from safety and into the air.

She may have  _ felt _ no resistance, but that was only thanks to the Raptora suit’s substantial thrust capacity. There certainly  _ was _ something holding her back - a certain Architech, clutching desperately at her ankles.

Symmetra cried out as the black-painted metal of Pharah’s armour tore free of her grasp, the guardian taking wing. Gold gleamed at her crown, fires burning at her back - she was every bit angelic as she floated, hovering. Just hovering. For a moment, Symmetra wondered whether something had happened, some deific intervention freezing cause and effect, bringing time to a standstill. Nothing seemed to move. The angel just floated there as her words echoed through Symmetra’s mind.

Pharah watched her indicators with a tightly clenched jaw. It would require some very,  _ very _ close timing, and at least a little bit of luck. She rattled off a quick prayer as the tank trained its main cannon on her, paused for a second, and then she cut her rockets and dropped like a stone.

There was another deafening boom as the tank fired again, the shell soaring harmlessly over Pharah’s head and tearing a hole through the warehouse’s doors - it didn’t explode there, but a few seconds later there was a thump as it hit some hillside.

Pharah barely heard an ecstatic cheer as she throttled up her jets again, and grinned.  _ My turn. _

Symmetra couldn’t have stopped the sharp cry that leapt from her throat as the angel dodged a bullet - quite a bullet indeed. She clapped her hands together ecstatically, clasping them as Pharah launched back up into the air again. Then, the guardian angel spread her arms wide and, with a shout, unleashed hell.

Dozens or perhaps hundred of rockets flew from her shoulders, her thighs, every panel of her suit opening up to contribute its share of devastation. Symmetra’s eyes widened in awe at the sight of it - the flames glinted off of every flash of gold paint, and lit up the black armour as if Pharah were aflame. Wreathed entirely in fires of devastation, of retribution; inspiring and terrifying, as any angel should surely be.

Symmetra had never been one much for angels. The modern takes were too soft, or simply uninteresting; archaic ones were either bland or nonsensical although they did at least inspire an otherworldly feeling. There were some, though - some accounts or representations dotted throughout history - that she found some intrigue in. Seeing Pharah before her now only solidified that.

She knew angels, now, and she loved them. How could one not?

Pharah dropped to the ground in a crouch, her jets momentarily spent from the time hovering - they had to cool down, but she wasn’t done just because they were. She wasn’t closely familiar with this exact type of tank, but she doubted that her salvo would have destroyed it.

In fact, she was quite hoping for the opposite.

She took off in a dash, sprinting forward with a speed that didn’t seem to match up with the bulk her armour. She always had been athletic, had loved running and sports - she was well-known and well-regarded for it throughout her time in the military and Helix as well.

A wash of brightness momentarily startled her, but she soon recognized it as another of Symmetra’s shields - it rushed in front of her and Pharah shot a glance over her shoulder. There was the Architech, running effortlessly only a few paces behind. Pharah suspected she could have become entranced by the sight: the determination in Symmetra’s eyes and across her face, the easy grace with which she swung her arms and pumped her legs.

Pharah let out a shout as she kicked her jets on again, just the tiniest burst to send her flying forward and up. Bullets splashed against the flying shield as the tank’s hatch was flung open and a man popped out, firing wildly - but armoured hands caught his harness and lifted him. Pharah dropped him over a knee, driving an elbow into the small of his back and ripping the rifle from his hands, yanking the sidearm from his holster before she threw him off of the tank.

Symmetra’s hand caught the pistol and Pharah’s eyes flashed up to meet hers. The Architech only shook her head, swiftly, and reached out to plant a hand firmly against Pharah’s chest. 

Goosebumps flowed over her skin, hairs trying to stand up on end beneath the tight underlayer of her armour as she felt electrified. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw a now-familiar glowing blue glimmer coating her arms and hands which explained the odd sensation; the shield seemed to cover her.

_ Excellent.  _ With a chuckle and a grin, Pharah dropped down into the tank. There were shouts, gunshots, thumps, and quite a lot of dark and delighted laughter before three limp bodies were hefted out one at a time. Pharah tossed them off the side as Symmetra held a small shield aloft and crouched behind it to avoid the bullets hailing down from the cargo crates.

“We must find cover!” Symmetra shouted over the noise of gunshots.

“Oh, hey look,” Pharah grinned. “I found some.”

Before Symmetra could ask or say anything else, strong hands caught her upper arms and pulled her away and down into the belly of the machine. She yelped slightly as Pharah hugged her close, wrapping one arm around her chest and reaching up to yank the hatch closed with the other.

When the tank sealed off, the gunshots became muffled figments a world away, and the space was filled with panting and the scent of sweat and gunfire and electrical discharges. Symmetra held her breath in Pharah’s embrace, watching as the soldier tugged her helmet off with a chuckle and a grin, both of which crept into Symmetra’s gut.

She felt safe, here, and it had nothing to do with the armoured vehicle surrounding them. She started to lean in toward Pharah reflexively, and was somewhat startled when the angel dropped her embrace and stepped past her entirely.

“Oh,” Pharah grinned as she set her helmet down on a console and went to take a seat. “They’re going to  _ regret _ giving me a toy like this!”

“You know how to pilot it?” Symmetra stared openly, standing still. Her body, her mind, and her heart were still somewhat clashing; caught on the horns of indecision, dilemma, incomprehension, she did nothing and simply stood.

“Mm, you tell me,” Pharah chuckled with a tilt of her head. The tank jerked forward a few feet, knocking Symmetra off-balance, but Pharah adjusted quickly.

Her hands sat in pools of holographic light, and shifting them translated directly to movements of the tank’s treads. This time she was more cautious, more gentle, and the vehicle didn’t jerk - it began to rattle forward slowly, and then sped up. Bullets struck the outer shell with a series of sharps pings, but they were of no concern at all.

Symmetra came to crouch behind Pharah’s shoulder as the soldier manoeuvred them around. She took the tank out toward the wide front doors of the warehouse and then spun it on a dime, facing back toward the structure of stacked shipping containers.

“Pharah, no.”

The soldier grinned. “Pharah,  _ yes.” _ The main cannon rang out, shunting one of the upper cargo boxes right off of the stack where it fell with a heavy clang to the ground, and then the tank started to move forward. Not to creep, but to  _ speed _ toward the structure.

Symmetra clutched at the chair she crouched behind. “No! If the stack tumbles incorrectly, then we could be trapped!” Explosions joined in the chorus of gunfire from outside as the soldiers produced grenades and rocket launchers.

“Then I’d best be careful not to hit it incorrectly, hadn’t I?” Pharah’s grin set solidly, gleaming dangerously in the light of the holographic screen in front of her as the tank hurtled forward toward the stack. Gunflashes lit frantically around the structure like a child’s sparkler at a celebration, but began to stall as the soldiers realized what was about to happen.

Symmetra’s eyes searched the screens frantically, inspecting geometries and making calculations based on rushed guesses of density and friction. “Move-” the containers were stacked precariously. If they fell in a bad way, the tank could become pinned underneath them, and Symmetra had no desire to waste away her days in hunger trapped within a war machine. Angel or otherwise. Her words failed her, but she reached out at the last moment and tugged on Pharah’s arm.

The motion translated down into the sodlier’s hand, and into the tank’s controls - one tread slewed as it tried to spin faster and sent the whole vehicle lurching a few degrees to the side. The tank struck the lowest of the shipping crates not straight-on, but at an angle.

That container skidded back on the concrete floor, throwing up sparks and unbalancing the ones stacked on top of it. Those, in turn, upset others as they tumbled - like a children’s structure made out of wooden blocks, they toppled and fell into each other, filling the warehouse with a deafening din of resounding crashes that was nicely muffled inside the armoured vehicle.

The tank sailed straight through. Engine roaring, it launched through the gap it had made in the wall when it struck the first container. The sides threw up sparks where they struck against the steel walls that closed in on either side, and the passage narrowed toward the end. The corner of the tank clipped one of the reinforced edges of the last shipping crate and sent the pair inside lurching forward, but the vehicle tore through the mild-grade steel as if it was tinfoil.

“See?” Pharah panted, glancing around as she slowed the vehicle to a halt. Screens at every side of the tank and at the rear as well showed the world outside. She gestured behind them at the scattered and toppled crates. “Nothing to it! Still doubt my piloting skills?”

“Well, you are hardly collision-free,” Symmetra smirked, breathing heavily in her exhilaration but  raising an eyebrow as the expression split into a grin. “Although, I suppose that was hardly the point now, was it? Now, have we caused enough chaotic disruption? Shall we now attend to these prisoners? The innocents must be-”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Pharah waved her off with a grin and set her hands to the controls again. She drove forward slowly, toward a series of crates that were not stacked but rather arranged in a circle on the ground. She suspected that those would be the ones.

Some guards were there. They looked very afraid. Pharah stopped the tank about twenty feet short of them as they emptied bullets pointlessly at it.

“Your weapon will be ineffectual in this circumstance,” Symmetra pointed out as she studied the screens.

Pharah snorted. “Oh, really? You think?”

“I do - for the matter of preservation of life,” Symmetra nodded. “But mine will be  _ quite _ effective.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately that’s a bit too much of a risk,” Pharah muttered, shaking her head. “We’ll need to come up with a better plan.”

She felt something poke into her head. Or, rather,  _ three _ somethings - the prongs of Symmetra’s weapon, she suspected as she kept her eyes locked on the screen in front of her. The Architech’s voice came softly, underlaid with light laughter. “I could always render you unconscious again. Then you could hardly stop me.”

Pharah suppressed the urge to grin, and managed to keep it to a smirk instead as she turned her head slowly to meet Symmetra’s eyes. They were light and practically dancing with laughter, but Pharah managed to keep it together and maintain a stoic visage. Mostly. “I thought,” one of her eyebrows quirked, “you would not incapacitate an ally?”

Symmetra’s eyes narrowed slightly and her smirk grew as she withdrew the photon projector a few centimetres. “Is that a yes?”

Slowly, Pharah sighed, shaking her head.  _ “Fine,” _ she muttered, “but only because they’re out of ammo now.” She gestured at the screen in front - no more flashes, no sounds of gunshots, no metallic pings. “Idiots wouldn’t stop shooting at the tank. And hey-” she raised a finger as Symmetra turned to leave. “If you get punched, I’m not kissing it better.”

Symmetra only scoffed as she pushed the hatch upward and ensconced herself in blue light. The soldiers had truly been fools to expend their ammunition, but it was of course possible that they still held reserves. She would not give them the opportunity to cause her any harm. The Architech walked forward along the barrel of the tank’s main cannon, gently placing one foot in front of the other and glaring down at the soldiers; her balance was perfect and her movements graceful and deliberate.

Behind her, Pharah popped her head out of the hatch - helmeted again. She grinned as Symmetra balanced on the barrel as easily as if it were flat ground. It had taken her some time to get comfortable with  _ people _ , in some ways; military ways did tend to die hard when it came to that sort of thing, but trying to socialize with  _ people _ and trying to socialize with  _ soldiers _ could be pretty different.

Although, she had to admit, this was a bit more like the latter than the former. Slightly oppositional, the butting heads that came with a certain brand of camaraderie. She  _ also _ had to admit that she’d missed it. A lot.

She watched Symmetra walk right out to the tip of the gun, balancing there for a few moments and looking down at the soldiers twenty feet away, trying to hide behind the crates which held the prisoners. Their useless weapons shook in their hands.

Then, though, she heard another noise. A whirring, from behind her, and didn’t bother turning to check what it was - she pulled herself up out of the hatch and hit her jets, launching herself forward at Symmetra. The bullets started to fly as she got there, wrapping her arms around the Architech and continuing to rocket along, straight forward at the clustered soldiers.

Her helmet drove into one man’s gut, sending him sprawling back ten feet or so. Pharah spun around the corner and let go of Symmetra, who immediately twirled away. The Architech swung low, sweeping one soldier’s feet out from underneath him as her beam latched onto another and sent him crumpling to the ground.

Pharah swung a punch that was dodged, ducked one in return, and then drove a knee into the soldier’s gut. As she flipped him over and gave him a kick in the ribs, she heard a clunk from the back of her helmet.

Turning around slowly, she saw a terrified-looking man holding his rifle like a baseball bat. With a sigh, she grabbed him by the shirt and just shoved him backward where he fell to the ground and tried to scramble away.

Two soldiers leapt at her and she let herself fall to a crouch before hitting her jets for just half a second. She expected it a lot more than they did, and was a lot more capable of dealing with the resultant fall. They sloughed off of her as she came back to earth, landing knee-first ontop of another man who was angling to grab Symmetra from behind.

Symmetra herself was far from inactive - she lashed out with swift kicks and the beam of her photon projector, deftly avoiding strikes. One man tried to punch her and she dropped, smiling as his fist struck the metal container behind her and he cried out, but as she kicked at his ankle and caught him in her beam, his cry swiftly died away to nothing.

Rolling forward, she popped to her feet and buried a knee in another soldier’s gut, knocking the gun from his hand and driving an elbow into the soft flesh where his shoulder met his neck. He crumpled to the ground, and then there were none more standing.

The Architech quite calmly pulsed her weapon for a few seconds on every soldier who laid around moaning, rendering them all unconscious. Then, without looking up from them, she cleared her throat. “I had a shield.”

“Yeah, well,” Pharah shrugged, blood pumping with adrenaline. “I decided you could use two.”

Symmetra scoffed, but Pharah stepped closer and cut off any words that were about to come. “That was a stupid decision, letting you go out first - I thought it was safe, and you seemed to be-”

“You still think it is something to  _ permit,” _ Symmetra sighed, and then quirked an eyebrow. “And this is now twice you have mentioned one of your failings being my fault.”

Pharah blinked, open-mouthed. “I was  _ going _ to say you seemed to be capable of handling your own,” she chuckled, “and let’s not forget who was blaming whom for making them  _ nervous _ , shall we?”

“It was me,” Symmetra nodded slightly, crossing her arms. “You are avoiding my point.”

With a sigh, Pharah ran a hand over her helmet. Safety, equals, trust - there was a lot to be said for all of it. If it had been Tariq out there, what would she have done? The same, or would she have trusted him to hold his own?

It was a difficult question, particularly given how much her mind clouded with that recollection of fear when she’d heard the turret start to spin up to speed.

_ The turret. _

Pharah blinked. “Hold on a second-”

“You are  _ still _ avoiding my point,” Symetra hissed, but the avoidance actually answered her question quite neatly. She shook her head. “You  _ said _ equals, but-”

“No, I-” Pharah held up a hand and tilted her head to the side. “The turret stopped. Why did it stop?”

Rolling her eyes, Symmetra leaned back against the wall behind her. “Perhaps they have no more bullets, perhaps they see no more targets - perhaps they were  _ ordered _ to, as a  _ subordinate  _ would be.”

Groaning, Pharah dropped her head forward. “Look, it’s not- okay, fine, I got a little order-y. As if you haven’t done the same.”

“I have,” Symmetra nodded. “You will recall it caused some great strains. I have since desisted.”

Pharah chuckled. “Oh, have you now? Somebody forgot to inform me.”

Symmetra’s eyes flashed and she pushed herself forward off of the wall angrily, but was caught by Pharah’s hands at her upper arms and defused by a warm chuckle.

“I’m sorry.” Pharah sighed a little, letting her hands drop. “I’m used to being in command, to seeing a situation and reacting, and… yes, I still see you as my charge here, but I  _ did _ mean what I said about being equals. You did really well, and-” she cleared her throat, shrugging a shoulder hesitantly as she let out a little chuckle. “I don’t suppose I could say I was just trying to get into your shield, could I?”

Symmetra took a slow breath and let it out as her nostrils flared. Pharah had no eyes, not with the visor down and her head tilted toward the ground like that; no face at all really, but that was hardly a concern. Faces so rarely told her anything anyway. “I suppose you could say that.” She smirked slightly. “I’ll  _ permit _ it.”

The soldier chuckled and Symmetra’s smirk grew into a slight grin as she dropped her gaze. A good response - joviality, it meant things were still going well. Or at least, she thought that was what it meant. “I suppose I am unfamiliar with working with others. It could be that- I am not performing so admirably myself.”

“Bah,” Pharah shrugged a shoulder, glancing around. “Seems to me like you’re doing plenty fine - like  _ we  _ are, actually, I suppose. Stole a tank, knocked out some soldiers. Neither of us have been shot yet.”

“Well, not particularly,” Symmetra tipped her head to the side. “I did shoot you one time.”

“Mm,” Pharah nodded, “thank you,  _ so _ much, for reminding me of that, yes.” She grinned as Symmetra chuckled, and hiked her head to the side. “Come on, let’s get these prisoners out.”

“Aww. You’re done with your little spat? I was just thinking about making popcorn.”

Pharah spun around, rocket launcher at the ready, and ended up shoulder-to-shoulder with Symmetra who had her photon projector raised and a barrier projected. There, on one of the crates, was the Shrike, crouched.

“I thought you said you weren’t coming into the warehouse?” Pharah raised an eyebrow.

“And I thought  _ you _ said you would be paying more attention,” the Shrike retorted. “It took you thirty seconds to even realize that I’d taken out the turret - and you  _ still _ haven’t said thank you for it.”

“Who are you?” Symmetra murmured, holding her shield aloft.

With a synthetic-sounding laugh, the Shrike slid forward off of the edge of the crate and dropped to the ground. They sauntered forward, rifle resting back against their shoulder. “Well, at least  _ somebody _ is paying attention to what’s going on.”

Pharah’s arm snapped out and a concussive rocket leapt from her wrist-launcher. The Shrike didn’t even have time to react before it whipped past their knees, ruffling their cape and striking the ground twenty feet behind them. The blast wave knocked a soldier who’d been rounding the corner back onto his ass, and knocked him unconscious as well.

“I pay attention to plenty,” Pharah nodded. All in all, this mission actually  _ was _ working out pretty well - no major injuries so far, or even really any minor ones. She might have a few sore muscles in the morning, but it hardly mattered - Symmetra was the important one anyway.

The soldier’s eyes flicked over the Architech in question as she moved a few steps away, checking her over for injuries, but there were none. Still, she found her gaze lingering for a few moments as Symmetra gracefully walked away.

The containers here were laid out in a large circle, about fifty feet across the middle, but it wasn’t just empty space. Pharah followed Symmetra as she walked toward the middle of the room where there was a large hole dug into the ground, about twenty or thirty feet across.

They stepped to the edge and leaned over, peering down - scaffolding and ramps led into it, and it was clear that it wasn’t just a hole. Giant chunks of concrete and metal spoke of something  _ buried _ below.

“Well, Alice,” the Shrike chuckled from behind them. “You found your rabbit hole.”

“Open the locks.” Symmetra turned away from the hole swiftly, then frowned slightly and cleared her throat. That had been an order again. If she was going to ask Pharah to desist, it would only be fair to return the effort in kind.  _ “If _ you open the locks, I would make the teleporter transmitter, so that the prisoners might be easily and quickly freed.”

Pharah chuckled slightly. “Sounds like a good plan to me.” She touched her jumpjets, just enough to send her whistling through the air toward the entrance to one of the large cargo containers. They were held shut with nothing more than simple padlocks, and Pharah was able to smash them off with the butt of her rocket launcher.

She didn’t watch as Symmetra did whatever it was she did in order to make things from nothing but the next time Pharah looked over there was a faint blue halo hovering above a short pedestal. Presumably that teleporter she’d been talking about.

It had sounded ridiculous when the Architech had first mentioned it - but then, so had just the mere concept of hard-light creations, when Fareeha had first heard about  _ those. _ A surprising amount had changed over the course of a few hours.

For instance, the whole objective of this mission being derailed to something entirely different. As she smashed another padlock into metal chunks, Pharah did spare a moment’s thought to that - to what it meant, both tonight and in the larger scheme of things.

There had been a time that the main mission objective had been not only the most important thing, but the  _ only _ thing she’d considered. That had run aground abruptly, shattered on the rocks at Anubis’ temple; a falling pillar, a teammate in trouble, and one… clear… shot.

A shot she’d fucked up. A shot she’d  _ known _ she would fuck up if she moved - but if she hadn’t? Tariq would have died. Up until then, up until Captain Khalil’s death, it was so clear: obey your orders. Fulfill the mission. Nothing else mattered.

Now? Now she had a team relying on her, a family of sorts, and while she knew it wouldn’t be forever, it was what it was for  _ now _ , and that was important.

Although, that also wasn’t quite the case. She knocked off another padlock and yanked the door open, frightened eyes cringing back away from her until she gestured them out into the light, dirty and terrified people rushing quickly toward Symmetra. Right now -  _ right _ now, there was no team.

Just her, and the Architech.

Pharah had opened up every container by this point, and jetted across the hole to make it back to where Symmetra had set up her little platform. The Architech was standing ten or fifteen feet back, but it was clear from a glance that she had been right about the teleporter - a person would step up onto the platform, shimmer, and disappear only to be followed by another, and another, and another.

At least a dozen ran through as Pharah crossed the hole, and then the halo wavered and fell - Symmetra tried to push her way forward through the crowd, but they offered her no passage. Not only that, but she looked quite agitated by the whole thing, and it brought a frown to Pharah’s lips.

Symmetra was not having a good time. The people were loud, they were smelly, they were dirty, and there were so  _ many _ of them. They wanted to shake her hands, they shouted things at her which she only half-understood, there were so many and they all wanted to say something to her. They were frightened and angry and hopeful, and their emotions spilled over her in a disorienting tumult which felt hot and oppressive. She could scarcely breathe. It was all simply too much.

Then the teleporter faltered. The base only held so much power, but she could recharge it - all she needed was access. She had retreated to the safety of solitude, as she so often did; now the crowd raged and swelled like the vicious ocean as their means of exit disappeared before their eyes.

Their cries of terror and confusion shot through Symmetra’s core like arrows of ice and fire, she tried to make her way forward but there were so  _ many _ and they wouldn’t move and she felt as if they just might crush her into a paste, she couldn’t  _ breathe _ with their nearness and-

A pair of hands caught her shoulders and pulled her swiftly backward. She let out an involuntary cry and clutched at them - strong, cold,  _ metal _ \- Symmetra spun around and came face-to-face with her guardian angel once more, visor raised, a gentle smile on her lips.

“Here,” Pharah murmured, “stay behind me. I’ll help.”

The armour-clad angel strode forward confidently into the crowd, as if it meant nothing to her - parting the people like the seas, one arm outstretched and pressing people to either side. The other trailed back, and Symmetra held onto it tightly with both of her own. 

Symmetra didn’t look around, she tried not to listen or to breathe: she focused in her whole world onto the feeling of Pharah’s hand in hers, and the guardian’s back directly in front of her. The way the jets nestled in her wings, the way the wings themselves were constructed and jointed to her back; Symmetra studied them with a mechanical eye, an analytical eye, and engaging her mind thus helped to quell the unfortunate feelings the crowd instilled.

They reached the platform without incident. Symmetra fell to her knees against it, only then dropping Pharah’s hand, and the soldier turned away and stood over with her arms outstretched holding people somewhat at bay. 

The crowd jostled and shouted questions and other things, and she had no answers to give them - only Symmetra had the answers, and she wasn’t speaking. The machine had stopped working, and the only hope of fixing it was currently knelt next to it. Pharah spared glances down behind her whenever she could to check on Symmetra’s state and progress, although there was nothing really which she could tell. It was all a mystery to her.

The Architech conjured a ball of energy into her hand, the sort that she would deposit into her photon projector in order to reload. Larger, though, and this one instead slotted into a receptacle in the teleporter’s base. It could only sustain so many people to be transported, so much mass over so much distance; it all required power and while she could refill its reserves, she would need to do so repeatedly.

As the halo reappeared and the crowd shouted out ecstatically, surging forward, Symmetra pushed away into the backs of Pharah’s knees. Quite forcefully, in fact; enough to make the soldier stumble, but she didn’t fall.

Pharah turned and looked around for whoever had tried to knock her on her ass, but there was nobody there - everyone was focused only on the teleporter, on trying to shove through it as quickly as possible. She felt something at her knees again and looked down to find the Architech with her arms wrapped around them like there was a river raging around her. Pharah supposed that, in some ways, there almost was.

She crouched as much as she could with Symmetra’s arms encircling her knees (which is to say, not very much at all) and tried to keep the people away as much as possible. When she got close, she heard the Architech making small noises, pained noises.

“What- what’s the matt-” Pharah was jostled by the people moving past, but not nearly as much as Symmetra was. Every knee nudged her shoulders and she recoiled as if burned by it, only to be met by one on the other side. Her eyes were wide and frantic and Pharah didn’t like it one bit. “What’s wrong?”

“I- hate crowds!” Symmetra squeaked, trying to pull closer into Pharah. There were people everywhere, and she couldn’t hope to get past them again - and even if she  _ did _ she would need to get  _ back _ through them when the teleporter ran out of energy again. It would need several recharges in order to transport this many people. She had not been expecting such throngs.

Pharah didn’t really know what to do about it - yes, there was a crowd, but there was hardly anything to be done. She couldn’t hope to hold them back, but Symmetra seemed to be trying to get as close as possible. At the very least, she could keep people from knocking into her, maybe. It would be something.

Symmetra’s breaths heaved of their own volition, rapidly and roughly, but one caught between her teeth as the angel wrapped her up in strong arms. She felt as if she were surrounded by wings as well, enveloped and shielded from the chaos of the crowd - they were still out there, all of the people, but they didn’t strike or jostle her anymore. They were muffled and distant, on the other side of a barrier.

She collapsed forward into Pharah’s embrace, pulling her arms in tight across her own chest and curling up into a ball as much as possible. Pharah crouched down tightly to the ground, wrapping herself around the Architech as much as she could- it seemed to be working. At the very least, she hadn’t been knocked out by that beam yet and Symmetra wasn’t yelling or anything like that. Two good signs, at the least.

Another chunk of people went through and the teleporter stopped again. Pharah leaned them toward the pedestal until Symmetra could access it - she unfurled herself just enough to deal with the situation before clutching tightly in to Pharah’s chest again, and the soldier pulled her in.

At some point, the crowd ceased to matter. It almost ceased to exist - at some point, Pharah realized that she wasn’t holding the people back from Symmetra anymore. She was just holding Symmetra. The people rushed past like rain sluicing off of her armour, and she didn’t care in the slightest - not about anything else in that moment, other than the clearly panicking woman in her arms. 

Panicking, but still working. It was obvious that Symmetra would rather be anywhere else except for here, but she was  _ here _ , and for only one reason: to help these people. To get them to safety. Fareeha’s breaths ran a little shallow as she thought about it.

The Architech smelled like blood and sweat, the remnants of days of captivity and probable torture; except for her hair. Her hair carried a faint scent of jasmine and honey, one that Pharah didn’t  _ intend _ to catch a whiff of, but the night had been filled with unintended actions. At least this was a pleasant one.

Symmetra shut it all out, everything, everything except for her angel’s arms. She knew it was time to reload the teleporter when they opened up, when they slacked their hold, and the instant that was done they tightened again. She could relax in them and she did,  _ safe, _ letting herself be compressed by the tight embrace.

People had never been a strength of hers. Something she was unable to bear. The more, the more  _ miserable _ contrary to the popular phrase; crowds were perhaps the worst thing she could imagine. They reminded her of home in the worst possible way, the masses of people that could sweep a child away and they would never be heard of again - the swarms that could erase a person entirely, total loss of self. Total chaos.

Even separation from them offered little solace - she had been awarded and had been present at public revelations, and even being on stage above and away from the people was somewhat worrisome. Not nearly so much so as being  _ enveloped _ by them, engulfed, devoured and swept away by their chaotic swarm.

That, though, was not what was happening at that moment. She was not enveloped by the swarm, she was ensconced in an embrace, wrapped tightly in an angel’s wings and protected from the ills of the world. She shivered at first as the tight concern in her chest subsided, but it gave way to warmth as she was  _ safe. _

She was safe here. The crowd could spill by, unexpected assault vehicles could spring out from nowhere, but she was safe. With Pharah here, her guardian angel - Symmetra took a shallow breath and sighed it out as she relaxed in the soldier’s embrace. She reloaded the teleporter mechanically, methodically, thoughtlessly, prompted by the other woman’s movements alone.

Eventually, the people were gone. Pharah realized that she had her eyes closed, tightly shut - opening them to glance around, there were no more prisoners, no more civilians. The ring glowed faintly above the teleporter, and all of the people had seemingly gone through it. Pharah chuckled softly, looking down to the Architech in her arms. “You did it,” she murmured.

Symmetra swallowed heavily, meeting Pharah’s eyes. The eyes of an angel - looking at them inspired so much, deep inside her; she had not realized it all previously, but now she recognized at least a facet and she knew what she needed to do next.

Pharah leaned back a little as Symmetra opened up, straightening from the ball she’d been curled into. She wasn’t expecting the Architech to raise a hand to stroke at her cheek, and she  _ really _ wasn’t expecting soft lips to meet hers; just for a moment, but not a  _ hesitant _ moment. Symmetra seemed entirely certain as she pressed a kiss briefly to Pharah’s lips, a kiss that staggered her lungs and left them powerless to draw air.

As they parted, their gazes sought each other - no words seemed to suffice on either side of the situation.

Symmetra could not hope to explain, in words that never seemed apt, a series of emotions that were almost certainly alien to the soldier, the angel - they always were; Symmetra couldn’t understand the emotions of others, so how could she hope  _ them _ to understand  _ her? _

Pharah, on the other hand, was unable to say anything for much simpler reasons: confusion and lack of breath.

“Well,” the Shrike cleared their throat - or at least did something that sounded like clearing their throat - and Pharah’s head snapped over in that direction. “A very touching moment. Now, are the two of you going to be going dow-” they cut themself off with a chuckle.

“I mean, are you going to proceed into the hole- ha. Well, it would seem there is no way for it  _ not _ to sound suggestive. Regardless,” they tipped their head toward the large hole that had been dug into the ground and gestured, rather than finishing the sentence.

Pharah pushed herself to her feet and offered Symmetra a hand that she gratefully accepted, standing as well. The soldier cleared her throat, and tried to brush away the hot blood that rushed through her chest. The confusion over what had just happened. “It’s tempting to just drive the tank in there and call it plugged, but I don’t suppose that would suffice.”

The Shrike barked a short laugh. “Ah, you still don’t know what’s down there. I suppose it never was common knowledge - you won’t be seeing me again once we get down there.”

“You said you wouldn’t come into the warehouse,” Pharah pointed out again, crossing her arms and regarding the unknown bounty hunter coolly. Not only had they disproven  _ that _ , they were now going further, into the excavation proper.

One shoulder rolled in an easy shrug as the Shrike gestured loosely with that hand. “I lied to you. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What are you here for?” Symmetra spoke up from Pharah’s elbow. She still did not know who this masked figure was - whether they were even human or machine - but it hardly mattered. Motives and actions defined a person perhaps better than anything else.

Despite the crowds’ departure, she leaned in close to Pharah’s side.

“Well you’re just spoiling the surprise, now,” the Shrike murmured, a hint of a chuckle in their synthetically-laced tone. “I’ll tell you at the bottom of the shaft, shall I? Ha! Shafts and holes, I suppose it’s best to simply give oneself over to innuendo, hmm? Well, ladies…” they stepped to the edge of the excavation and shot a glance over their shoulder which somehow implied a smirk despite no visible facial features at all. “Going down?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup yup! You've got to wonder what this is all like for Mama Shrike, eh? Not wanting to give away her identity, of course, but she's obviously not happy about Fareeha endangering herself like this. Easiest just to keep up sarcastic walls.
> 
> So then! What's gonna happen between these two ladies, huh? (Stuff, is the answer - stuff's gonna happen) :D   
> ...but yeah, I like doing set-up and things like that. Lots of people plop right into things already developed, and that's really cool! I just don't think I do it particularly well, and I like portraying the evolution of things, so... that's gonna happen, yup yup!
> 
> C'mon back next time when the ladies go down, deep into the hole, all the way to the bottom of the shaft. Seriously there's no non-dirty way to say it - but Pharah will have a moment there at least to ask what the fuck exactly just happened. We'll see what Mama Shrike's been hiding, too.


	5. Confrontational Personalities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pharah and Symmetra beat the Shrike to their destination, which gives them a few private moments for Pharah to get some questions answered. Or at least, one question. "Hey. The fuck was up with that kiss?" (give or take).  
> The bounty hunter and the Helix soldier don't get along, and things threaten to boil over in a hurry; Symmetra gets to stretch her diplomacy muscles, and then again when Pharah slips up talking about Vishkar a little bit. Some nerves are a little raw and don't take well to being brushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta have some conflict somewhere, right?

Pharah couldn’t wipe the grin from her face. Sure, she didn’t know much about the Shrike and they’d only just met - but still, she got a smug sense of satisfaction out of one-upping the bounty hunter.

“Having fun there?” Pharah called over her shoulder as her jets let her gently descend down the centre of the excavated shaft. Symmetra was held firmly in her arms. The Shrike, on the other hand, had to make use of other methods.

From here, and over the noise of her jets, Pharah couldn’t hear anything - she suspected, though, that (presuming that the Shrike was human rather than omnic) there would be a lot of panting happening. Probably some muttered insults, as well, as the bounty hunter was forced to jog along the sloped wooden scaffolding that ran around the walls of the excavation shaft.

Even running, even leaping down platforms sometimes, they still failed to keep up with Pharah’s pace - particularly when, after a moment of slowly drifting down at the top, the soldier let her jets die for a few seconds of freefall.

Symmetra didn’t like that one bit. Her arms tightened involuntarily as the pit dropped out of her stomach, and a moment’s horror washed over her intensely - as far as she knew, Pharah’s systems had just encountered some failure and they were both about to fall to their deaths. She should have taken the stairs along with the Shrike.

They didn’t die, though, and Pharah’s systems hadn’t failed. Her jets flared up again as they neared the bottom floor - glancing up, Pharah saw that the Shrike wasn’t even a quarter of the way down the shaft, yet.  _ Good, very good. _

“Th-thank you,” Symmetra stammered slightly, clearing her throat and standing. She brushed idly at her uniform as she tried to slow her racing heart. Largely, it had been the fall which had spurred it on, but there had been a definite increase even at the start, from being held in her angel’s arms.

“No problem,” Pharah nodded, glancing up again briefly. “So… would you mind explaining what happened up there?”

Symmetra looked at her for a moment of blank confusion, eyebrow raised, before sighing slightly. “Very well, but I doubt we have the time to go into particular detail. The teleporter is one of Vishkar’s most prized developments - a key facet of it was their development of the technology required to-”

“N-” Pharah sighed sharply, holding up a hand and tapping at her helmet with the other one to retract her visor. “No, not the  _ teleporter _ , the kiss. Explain that.”

Symmetra frowned a little, meeting Pharah’s eyes. They didn’t seem to be angry - they didn’t really seem to be  _ anything,  _ they were just eyes. Pretty eyes, but they didn’t tell her much. “It was a kiss. What is there to explain, if you already understand that much?”

“Wh- ha!” Pharah shook her head, laughing briefly and pressing a hand to the crown of her helmet. “What is there to  _ explain? _ Well, for starters,  _ why.”  _ She chewed at the inside of her lower lip for a second, shooting a slightly apologetic glance to Symmetra’s eyes. “Well done, evacuating everyone. It… obviously wasn’t easy for you. I should’ve started by saying that, sorry.”

Symmetra’s eyes dropped abruptly to the ground, heat rising to her cheeks. “Of course,” she nodded. “It was… far from easy, you are correct. Ease and requirement rarely align, however,” she cleared her throat and nodded, back straight as she raised her chin, “and one does what one must.”

There was a look in her eyes that Pharah couldn’t quite decipher. Something akin to determination, it seemed, as she met the soldier’s gaze. “I would have failed, if not for your intervention. I have been nervous throughout the night, and I recognized in your embrace what the root of that was… and I wanted to kiss you.”

An odd wave of heat rippled through Pharah’s core, squiggling in her gut and leaving her skin feeling a little clammy. It had been a while since she’d felt anxiousness quite like that, but there wasn’t really any opportunity to escape it with a joke. Symmetra certainly didn’t seem to be unsure in the slightest - Pharah had been expecting the whole incident to get chalked up to nervousness or fear, or the Architech’s obvious distress. Fleeting actions of a moment, and nothing more; she’d all but decided that on her own and was ready with a snarky comeback.

To hear that that  _ wasn’t _ the case, though, resulted in a little anxiousness. Pharah knew what to do with a flash action, something done on the spur of the moment, but to hear that the kiss had been intentional? There was no question to it, either, looking back into Symmetra’s eyes - she had meant it, one hundred percent, and she stood fearlessly by her actions. She wasn’t trying to take it back or explain it away: she wanted a kiss, so she did it.

It should have answered the question. Instead, it opened up a million more, but Pharah found herself a little too afraid of any of them to ask.

“I- I hope it was alright.” Symmetra cleared her throat, frowning slightly as uncertainty returned to her expression. Throughout her life she had got into trouble for taking actions before checking with people - or more specifically, for taking the  _ wrong _ actions regardless of how right they seemed at the time. Other people seemed to have an internal list of what was and wasn’t “acceptable”.

Symmetra didn’t. Even if she tried to ask first, it rarely worked; she’d long since made her peace with this fact. It was simply one more thing that set her apart, these days - one more facet of who she was, which surely contributed to what she could do.

Yet, she found herself nervous again. She seemed to be so, so often around this angel. Afraid of her judgement and wrath, perhaps.

“Yeah,” Pharah murmured, still a little too confused to process much. She shook it off, though, with a chuckle - stepping forward despite the wriggling in her stomach and resting a hand on Symmetra’s shoulder with a smile. “It was a really rough moment for you, that much was obvious, so of course…”  _ you’d want a little comfort. _

Except it wasn’t just that - that was the problem. Maybe not “problem”, per se, but that was what was causing confusion for Pharah, and worry as well. Her mind kept flicking back to it: the look in Symmetra’s eyes, how soft her lips had been, the scent of her hair as Pharah held her close and people rushed back. Every flicker of memory brought another little rush of hot and cold to Pharah’s gut.

She cleared her throat. Her skin was clammy everywhere now, and it felt a little bit difficult to breathe, as well. She wasn’t an idiot and she hadn’t been born yesterday, she knew what it meant; she wasn’t worried about  _ Symmetra’s _ feelings, it was her own that concerned her. “It was good,” she tried again. “Don’t worry about it.”

Symmetra studied the soldier’s face, her eyes - soft words, encouraging words, she wasn’t angry or running away. The Architech’s heart hammered in her chest, but she didn’t know what else to do about it. She searched Pharah’s dark eyes: they were entirely pleasant to stare into, they drew her in and almost entranced her, led her to lean in slowly, slightly, degree by degree.

There was an abrupt interruption as a small rock bounced off of Pharah’s helmet and the soldier’s head snapped upward. “Hey!”

A synthetic-sounding chuckle drifted down from above. “Oh, pardon me. Must have nudged a rock by accident.”

Pharah growled a sigh, shaking her head.

“Who  _ are _ they?” Symmetra kept her voice very quiet, glancing upward obviously.

“The Shrike,” Pharah murmured softly in response. “International bounty hunter and mercenary for the past… oh, five years now at least, so far as I know. Really high price on their head from a few different people. Halfway between a folk tale and a legend: pretty common belief is that there are actually several people who share the moniker.”

Symmetra nodded with a hum. “And they are aiding us?”

Chuckling, Pharah shrugged. “Fair question. Perhaps ‘mutually aligned goals’ would be a more accurate description. Don’t know what they’re here for, but they seem to be willing to help out along the side, at least.” Her dark eyes drifted upward, picking out the bounty hunter up above. “Wouldn’t say I  _ trust _ them, exactly, but I don’t think we need to worry about them either.”

“They seem to have knowledge which we do not possess.” Symmetra frowned. “I dislike that.”

Pharah barked a short laugh, shaking her head. “Yeah, now why does that not surprise me?” She smirked as she glanced around to actually study her surroundings for the first time.

The bottom of the shaft was narrower than the top had been - it tapered as it descended, and down here the walls were only about ten or fifteen feet apart. Roughly circular, still, with a lot more debris than had been at the top. The shaft was probably around fifty or sixty feet down, but the chunks of debris looked far too modern to have been buried over time: it had either been constructed underground or buried intentionally, or maybe through some sort of landslide or other natural disaster.

The hole at the bottom was roughly circular, save for one wall which was flat - flat, and concrete, and had a metal door in it. Pharah had noticed that immediately but tried not to pay it much mind. Mostly out of concern that she might want to  _ open _ it if she did.

She did, too, now that she was looking at it. Wanted to fling it right open and see what was inside. “Maybe set up a turret or two,” she murmured softly, “in case something springs out at us.” She kept her eyes fixed, hawk-like, on that door as Symmetra nodded and went about her business. “How does that work exactly? There’s got to be a limit on it of some sort.”

Symmetra scoffed. “Oh, does there?” She smirked and responded, sarcastically, “I appreciate the information, thank you.” The soldier chuckled and Symmetra continued to explain. “There are proximal limitations but few distal ones: anything can be made given enough time, energy, and imagination. In a short period of time I can only erect a half-dozen turrets, for instance, but a few minutes later I could do as much again with ease.”

“Hmm,” Pharah nodded, half inspired by strengthening her understanding of the situation for tactical reasons, and half just sating her own curiousity. “And you can make anything?”

“Anything which I can understand or imagine,” Symmetra sighed slightly as she stroked her finger along a turret’s casing, before she spun to set another on the opposite side of the door. “Hard-light is capable of producing any material - given the correct amounts of power, time, understanding, of course. Glass, metal, fabrics, electrical components; anything.”

“Can you make food?”

Symmetra stalled halfway through realizing a turret. It shimmered and dissolved before it ever truly took form as she turned slowly to stare at Pharah in an almost horrified sort of confusion. “I… I do not know.” She frowned deeply. “I never thought to ask before.”  _ That _ was a worrying occurrence, and a rare one.

At the same time, it inspired an odd quirk of excitement in her - the concept that the angel had thought to ask a question she never had, the idea that she could be of aid in pushing the boundaries of development even further. It was a delightful prospect to say the least, and Symmetra’s frown was replaced with a grin as she turned back to the door to finish her turret.

“Well,” Pharah shrugged, sighing slightly, “if you figure out how to conjure up a nice thick cheeseburger, give me a call and I’ll come running.”

“Oh, would it be so simple?” Symmetra chuckled softly. “I shall keep that in mind.”

The soldier let out a laugh, grinning. “I can almost guarantee I’ve done stupider things for less, and if tonight’s any indication…” she trailed off for a second, shrugging one shoulder uncertainly and finding herself a little glad that the Architech was facing away. “I think we could work together quite well. I’d be happy to see you again.”

Symmetra froze for a moment, and then nodded. She couldn’t bring any words to her lips - breathlessness will do that to a person.

Pharah occupied herself with checking over her equipment for a few moments as the sounds of the Shrike’s footsteps drew closer. The Raptora teams were designed more for strike situations than for siege - they excelled at breaching and did a magnificent job of shock-and-awe suppression tactics. Highly effective in any arena that permitted mobility, and capable across a wide spectrum of combat.

This, though, had never really been an intended type of mission for them. Pharah knew that she put her suit and her equipment through things they were never strictly designed for - she knew that intimately, and had even framed a service bulletin that Anderson had passed along to her. It had been issued by the manufacturer after she’d burned through eight sets of jet nozzles in a month, and laid out new maintenance and inspection guidelines - as well as explicitly banning horizontal flight below fifty feet altitude, for durations of less than five seconds.

Not that she ever listened to that bulletin, of course, but she  _ did _ grin every time she caught sight of it on her wall. A little reminder that sometimes doing things the unexpected way, brought unexpected consequences - yes, she’d burned through jet nozzles and caused the manufacturer to issue statements and new rules, but she  _ also _ had an unprecedentedly high success rate in her missions.

In her opinion, one more mission succeeded and one more life saved was worth a thousand Raptora components. She loved her suit, and pampered it even, but at the end of the day it could be replaced if needed. An innocent life couldn’t.

Everything was in pretty decent shape right now, though. The issues Anderson had mentioned were there, the number two thermocouple was fried -  _ again - _ and the indicator refused to let itself be cleared from the side of her visor. She was just glad Anderson’s workaround was working, and kept the jets functioning rather than shutting down for self-preservation like they were  _ supposed _ to.

Sometimes, doing what you were supposed to do was just about the worst possible course of action.

Pharah’s dark lips tugged into a loose smirk as she heard the Shrike drop down to the ground - panting.  _ Either human, then, or an omnic who is really committed to the bit. _ “Have a good jog?”

“Didn’t your mother -” the Shrike panted, doubled over with their hands on their knees, “- ever tell you that -” they cut off the sentence to gasp another few breaths, and waved one of their hands weakly. “Oh forget it.”

Pharah laughed triumphantly, secretly glad the bounty hunter hadn’t continued with the sentence. She wasn’t sure she would be willing to accept really  _ any _ statement about her mother right now, or even ever from someone like this. Definitely not a criticism. Probably not a compliment, either.

A few people had tried. Reinhardt - a dear friend of both herself, and for a very long time of her mother as well. He’d been there at the funeral, one huge arm wrapped around Fareeha’s shoulders as she’d wept. There hadn’t even been a body to bury, just an empty casket and a folded flag from an organization that had crumbled so soon afterward.

Since then, Reinhardt had said that Ana would have been proud of her. Fareeha knew it was a lie, though, and it had brought a bitter taste to her mouth to hear -  _ she _ wanted to be in the military, she wanted to fight to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Reinhardt wanted the same, for himself and for her as well, but her mother? Ana?

Ana had only wanted her daughter safe and unharmed, whatever that entailed. Fareeha knew that. Her mother wouldn’t be proud of her - she’d be furious that Pharah continued to put her life on the line.

Fareeha loved her mother. It didn’t mean she always agreed with her - that she had agreed at the time, or that she did now. She didn’t. Her mother had risked everything to protect others, and Fareeha would do the same.

Even if she knew it meant Ana  _ wouldn’t _ be proud of her for it. She didn’t care about that fact.

...she also didn’t want to think about it.

So, she didn’t - the Shrike abandoned any hope of a wisecrack to lean back against the wall and heave for a few moments as they caught their breath anyway, and Pharah let her mind return to the easy memorized checks of her armour and her launcher, fingers tugging at latches and prodding at panels as she inspected the systems.

“Do you know what is through that door?” Symmetra approached the Shrike first, face set with determination.

“Yes.”

There was silence for a moment. Symmetra crossed her arms. “Are you going to tell me?”

“I suggest you do,” Pharah piped up before the bounty hunter had a chance to react. “Sometimes she just knocks people out to get what she wants.”

“Once!” Symmetra retorted with a huff. “I did that  _ once! _ However, yes, I would do so again if required.”

The Shrike chuckled softly, shaking their head and patting Symmetra on the upper arm. “Ah, a girl after my own heart. Perhaps you can teach your partner over there a thing or two about awareness and preparedness, hmm? Then she might live through the night.”

Pharah’s teeth ground against each other. She wasn’t sure quite  _ why _ the Shrike felt such a need to needle her like that, constantly questioning her abilities. They sounded like Pharah’s first drill instructor, in the Egyptian military; never satisfied and always finding flaws. When he couldn’t find any, he’d simply make some up - or just mock her about how she  _ could _ have messed up.

Admittedly, she had gone on to lead the colour party due to her burning and stubborn need to prove the asshole wrong. Still, he was a prick. Just happened to be an inspirational one. “Sergeant Mahmud?” Pharah smirked slightly. “You look different. About a foot shorter, for starters - somebody finally took you down a peg, eh?”

The Shrike laughed briefly but Symmetra flashed an angry look between the pair of them and interrupted that conversation. “Tell me what is behind those doors. What have these men been so desperate to uncover?”

The Shrike continued to laugh, letting it trail to a chuckle and then a sigh as they leaned back against the wall. “Well… it would be fun to tease you more, but I do have a job to do. I suppose the pair of you do as well - now, yours will be quite simple and quite self-evident, I suspect. This door leads into a quite old facility, it’s been abandoned for over thirty years now, but I’m sure you’ll still know exactly what it is and why it needs to be stopped as soon as I tell you what it is.”

...they didn’t, though - didn’t say  _ what _ , exactly, it was. Not quite yet at least. The Shrike returned to silence instead, resting back against the wall, and Pharah saw Symmetra’s jaw clench in frustration.

The soldier rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “Well? Come on, what is it? You won’t shut up about tactical ignorance, but then you won’t let me develop any awareness - real helpful.”

“All depends on what I’m helping with,” the Shrike muttered in return, and it didn’t sound sarcastic or biting. It sounded worried, but Pharah didn’t have any time to question it before the bounty hunter was speaking again. “Fine. Behind that door… is an Omnium.”

“No.” Symmetra shook her head instinctively, her mind flickering to fragments of conversations she’d heard over her internment here - words and phrases. She didn’t speak the language perfectly, but she knew enough to understand snippets and the general gist of what the guards had discussed. “No, they- they could not. They would not be so foolish.”

The Shrike laughed coldly. “You underestimate them. You also underestimate the power of money to sway fools.”

“Said the hired goon,” Pharah snipped darkly.

“Said the institutionalized mercenary,” the Shrike retorted easily, not looking over in her direction. “The plutonium these men have been gathering is to fuel the Omnium’s reactors. I doubt I need to tell you why they must not be allowed to succeed?”

Symmetra shook her head. “Of course not. That explains much of what I heard. The facility must be destroyed.”

The Shrike chuckled. “Yes, yes it must. Perhaps we’re not  _ all _ idiots here tonight - but, that is not what I’m here for. You two have fun with it.”

“I’m sorry, you  _ what?” _ Pharah’s words were sharp and she stepped forward but managed to restrain herself from actually grabbing hold of the bounty hunter.

“I’m here for another concern,” the Shrike responded simply.

“And this  _ concern,” _ Pharah crossed her arms, scowling. “Would it be greater than releasing hordes of murderous robots on the countryside?”

A hand shot out and struck her in the chest, open-palmed, knocking her backward and off-balance. “You have  _ no _ idea what is going on here,” the bounty hunter hissed. “I  _ remember _ them, you know - the omnics, the god-programs. You  _ don’t _ , so you can just shut up and stew. If you two don’t succeed, this country becomes as much of a warzone as Korea if we’re lucky, or as much of a hellhole as Australia if we’re not. If  _ I _ don’t succeed? We should all be as lucky as the Outback, now back the  _ fuck _ off  _ soldier girl _ .”

Pharah’s eyes and her gut burned, her teeth set against each other with enough tension that she thought they might just crack. It was probably a good thing, too, because if she could move her jaw she probably would have been shouting insults right back. One glance over to Symmetra’s eyes, though, swayed her mind - the Architech looked back almost pleadingly, and Pharah turned on heel and strode away to the opposite side of the hole.

Symmetra looked back to the Shrike, but the bounty hunter only watched Pharah go. A few seconds later, they still hadn’t looked away, and Symmetra cleared her throat. “Any other information you have would be greatly appreciated. If there is any aid I can render to your mission, I would gladly offer it in exchange.”

The Shrike remained frozen for another second or two, then cleared their throat and brushed at their cloak. “Of course, yes. It- the facility is inactive, its original automatic security measures will be of no concern. The prisoners have been employed clearing cave-ins throughout - your only worry will come from the soldiers which may have moved into the tunnels and rooms of the buried Omnium.”

The bounty hunter’s head twisted off to the side, facing the metal door - it seemed like a hesitant action to Symmetra. “The walls are shielded. I cannot see through them, so I can give no better advice.” There was a slight sound, barely audible, some sort of grunt or hum. “Unfortunately, that is the best that can be done.”

Symmetra nodded. “Some scattered soldiers hardly pose much of a serious risk. With preparation and awareness, our safety is assured; whoever you are, I have little choice save for to trust you.” Her lips tightened into a thin line. “If you say your concern here is so pressing, then I can hardly refute that point with no knowledge on the matter. However, rest assured that people reap what they sow. These agents of chaos will have waves of the same sweep them under; liars and thieves end up destitute and distrusted.”

“Ha!” The Shrike chuckled and shook their head. “I only wish, child. Now, keep your head about yourself, don’t forget-”

“I am no child and no fool,” Symmetra responded flatly. “I am well-versed in what will be required to gain victory - whatever your concern here is, I hope it does not take you long.”

“And why would that be?” The Shrike leaned back against the wall behind them, arms crossed over their chest.

Symmetra’s light laugh resounded at the bottom of the excavation, filling the space briefly with its melody. “Because we are going to destroy the entire facility! I have seen the aftermath of what happens if these factories are not destroyed. These men have sown the seeds of their own downfall - they even gathered the plutonium for me.”

A slow, devious grin spread across her lips - the Shrike had no face, but a face made little difference to Symmetra. They stayed still, but body language had never told her much anyway. Surely, their silence though, was an indicator of shock. Surely, the slow tilt of their head was growing realization.

Abruptly, the Shrike laughed and shook their head, clapping a hand firmly on Symmetra’s shoulder. “Ha! Oh, I do like you - try not to take out  _ too _ much of the surrounding countryside with your little firecracker, would you?”

“The calculations are well-understood,” Symmetra lifted her chin slightly. “It will be a simple matter. The facility’s burial will aid us further - rest assured, there will be no concerns on our end.”

“Well, on  _ yours _ , perhaps,” the Shrike muttered, seeming to glance off in Pharah’s direction.

_ “Ours,” _ Symmetra repeated firmly. “Concern yourself only with your own.”

Chuckling softly, the Shrike leaned in. “Of course. What bounty hunter would stretch their neck out for people they don’t even know? When have I done anything other than protect my own interests, hmm?”

Symmetra only hummed, tipping her head back in a slow nod. She had the distinct impression that there was more going on here than she was privy to: that crawling sensation under her scalp when something was happening that she could not see. Often it came about at whispers or phrases followed by hushed laughter, when presented with people clearly saying something other than what they meant.

“You’re lying about something,” the Architech murmured softly. “I don’t know what it is, but I know that much.”

She wasn’t expecting a chuckle, but that was what she got as the Shrike shook their head. “Yes, you’re right. I lie about much. It’s why I’m still alive. Now, so long and-” they paused for a moment as they stepped forward, glancing back over their shoulder to Symmetra. “Good luck.”

Symmetra nodded once. “For yourself, as well.”  _ Be careful what you sow. _ She watched as the Shrike spun the wheel on the steel hatch and pulled the door open, stepping through and swinging it shut behind them.

“Finally,” Pharah sighed. “Now, I’m pretty sure I heard you suggesting a truly awful plan for destroying this place?”

The Architech grinned as she walked over toward her guardian. “In that case, you heard incorrectly - what I suggested was an elegant and poetic plan by which these fools will have brought about their own downfall.”

“Oh, is  _ that _ the case?” The soldier muttered as she shook her head, hiding a smirk behind her helmet. “Symmetra, no.”

“Symmetra,  _ yes.” _

Pharah chuckled. “Yeah, I had a feeling you’d say that. Fine, I deserve it - but officially? We have no idea what was down here, we were never here, we never met any Shrike, and we definitely did not use a shipment of black-market plutonium to make a nuclear bomb in order to prevent rampant omnics from raging through the lands for a second time. Got it?”

“Oh, of course,” Symmetra shrugged one shoulder idly as she came close - stepped right up next to Pharah’s chest, standing almost uncomfortably close for the soldier, and peered up under the edge of her visor to seek out her eyes. “Why would we want to be heroes like that?”

“W- um,” Pharah cleared her throat and swallowed. “You’re awfully close there, Symmetra.”

“Of course I am,” the Architech murmured softly with a smile. “Did you expect me to climb all those stairs?”

It took a moment for the words to unwrap correctly in Pharah’s mind. Mostly because they kept getting slammed out of the way by the glimmer in Symmetra’s golden eyes, or that faint scent of jasmine and honey again, or the lingering confusion over their earlier kiss.

“Stairs!” Pharah cleared her throat and reached forward, picking Symmetra up in her arms. “Right, of course - we need to-”

“-go to the camp above to fetch the plutonium, yes,” Symmetra finished, nodding with a chuckle as Pharah’s jets burst at her back and propelled them both into the air. “We must fetch Vishkar’s stolen equipment as well.”

“Hmm, convenient. Your little plan requires that equipment, does it? What a shock.”

“You think I would lie about such a thing in order to secure company resources?”

Pharah cut off her jets as they set down gently at the lip of the excavation and she put Symmetra down on her feet again. She frowned slightly. “I think that you let yourself get captured rather than simply calling your employer and requesting backup, so recovering their stolen goods might help cover your ass in case they try to get pissed off at you.”

Symmetra tried to interrupt, but Pharah cut her off with a raised finger and a glance and kept going. “Because either you couldn’t call them, which after having seen what you  _ are _ capable of, I doubt - or, you could call them,” Pharah retracted her visor and met Symmetra’s eyes solidly. “You just didn’t think they’d care. So yes, I think you’re trying to find a bargaining chip.”

Symmetra stared back almost in terror. She should have known better than to try to hide anything from an angel - or for that matter from any person. She froze as she tried to come up with some other explanation, some alternate version of events that would alleviate any blame or bad image from tarnishing Vishkar’s reputation.

She took too long, though, and the look of fear in her eyes was all the confirmation Pharah needed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she huffed, glancing over to the tank barely visible between two of the containers that had been full of captives. “Come on, let’s go.”

The Architech was unwilling to leave things at that, though. It was too important, there was too much at stake - the entire world, in a way. She struggled to get out words,  _ any _ words, any explanation at all.  _ What would Sanjay say? He always has the words. _

“Vishkar- they are building a better world.  _ We _ are.” Yes, yes that sounded good, firm and resolute and very much like him, but it was hardly a full explanation. Spurred on by the confidence instilled by those few sentences, Symmetra continued. “It- triage has never been a strength of mine, but no person can hope to carry out every function on their own and there are others there who-” Symmetra stammered as she tried to explain something she didn’t understand to begin with. It was impossible to do.

Sanjay had tried to inform her, as had a few of the others - when it came to prioritizing tasks, she obviously understood. Medical triage as well she could understand; one person who would not survive their injuries regardless of effort, and one who would survive if given immediate attention - it was obvious who should first be aided.

Then, though, they tried to apply it further to the world. Demolishing a city to replace it with a new one, that made sense, yes, but… there were limits to it. Or at least, it seemed that way to her. Her mind flicked back to memories of fire and fear, cries and chaos; a night in Rio de Janeiro which she would never forget.

At first, she had been so certain that it had  _ not _ been Vishkar who had caused the explosions. She still preferred not to think about it - Sanjay refused to answer her directly, he only focused on the end goal: the people there would be provided for. They  _ would _ have their better world, a clean city with gleaming walls and  _ safety _ .

That was worth any cost, was it not?

It was a question which stuck out of Symmetra’s mind like a rock amongst the waves. She needed to be wary to avoid it, for fear of running aground. She was caught there now, between an impossibility and an impossibility; a rift in her mind and her heart and her gut and she felt entirely unwell around them, and there was nobody there to reign her in or reassure her.

Pharah saw the conflict in Symmetra’s eyes. She bitterly thought she recognized it as something she’d seen in the mirror. “Yeah,” she grunted. “I work for a company too. Sometimes… they get a little distracted by the bottom line, don’t they?”

A hot wave of nausea rushed through Symmetra’s core as her thoughts dashed upon that rock in her mind, tossed on stormy waves. “I don’t know about  _ Helix _ ,” she hissed back bitterly, eyes flashing with ire, “but Vishkar is concerned only with building a better world! That is their  _ only _ concern! All they do is for that purpose; the stolen equipment was developed solely to aid in that pursuit. Not _ every _ corporation is interested in monetary gains, now-” she cut off with an irate huff, nostrils flaring as she clenched her jaw. “Now stop talking about things you know nothing of, and take me to where you have hidden the plutonium.”

As the Architech stalked off angrily toward the tank, Pharah held her breath and watched her go. Chilled blood started to warm again as she slowly exhaled.  _ Alright. So… don’t criticize Vishkar, then. The company that she took bruises and bloody lips for, days of torture… _

She’s known a few people with abusive partners before, in relationships. This felt sickeningly familiar, and her blood ran hot again at the thought of it as her hands clenched into tight fists and she started to chase after the other woman. “Look, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Symmetra! Okay, I got it wrong, alright?” They still had a long night ahead of them and she didn’t want to make things any more painful than they had to be - besides which, if she wanted to stand a snowball’s chance in hell of  _ helping _ , she needed to not be cut out. “I’m sorry.”

Symmetra stood at the small ladder welded onto the tank’s side, tears burning in her eyes - but she refused to let them fall. Or, for that matter, to let Pharah see them. “Fine. You did get it wrong.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Pharah grumbled with a sigh, rolling her eyes. “Obviously we need to deal with this Omnium, most pressingly. But if you need the equipment anyway-”

“There is no  _ if.  _ I do.”

Pharah ground her teeth together, holding her words tightly back behind them for a few seconds as Symmetra climbed up the side of the tank. “Right. So, we can get everyone what they want: Vishkar gets their equipment, and you, back again. Helix gets to pat themselves on the back for a successful mission. You and I get to be proud that we saved these people.” She hit her jets and leapt up, skipping the ladder - but ran into a bit of a problem when she almost knocked Symmetra over. “Sounds like a plan, right?”

The Architech had frozen on top of the tank, near the edge. She stood still as dark thoughts whirled and clashed in her head.  _ Vishkar. Helix. You and I.  _ It felt like she was back there again, the favela igniting and exploding before her, screams and terror and chaos.

A new city had risen in its place. Order. Peace. Beauty.

...but at what cost?

_ Building a better world. _

But at what  _ cost?! _

It felt like a half-dozen parts of her mind were each trying to take independent paths, and her consciousness as a whole was being rent by it.

Pharah took a hesitant step closer. Symmetra’s eyes were unfocused, she hadn’t looked over or acknowledged her presence at all. “Symmetra?” Pharah shifted a bit to the side, trying to catch the Architech’s eye. “Look, it- this isn’t going to be easy. I-” she swallowed, “I really need you on my side here.”

Slowly, she saw the Architech surface from under waves of something. Confusion. Frustration. Fear. She saw a lot in those honey-gold eyes; people around Helix joked that she could see into people’s souls. She couldn’t of course, but she’d learned from her mother how to see a little in behind a person’s eyes: truthfulness, underlying intent. It was a skill that had saved her a lot of hassle and pain over the years.

She didn’t like one bit how Symmetra had reacted to that mention of Vishkar. That sort of defensiveness spoke of something really deeply rooted - and she may or may not have been using her own experience in the military and with her mother, to determine that. She was, she  _ definitely  _ was, and she knew it. That made it all the more important.

“On… your side,” Symmetra repeated slowly, shaking her head slightly. She frowned.  _ You and I. Proud. All these people. _ “On the same side, yes. Of course, it- that was my concern as well.” It must have been. She’d felt assaulted, despite how foolish that was; it was because it had seemed like Pharah wasn’t supporting her, was attacking her, that was it. It must have been.

“Good,” Pharah chuckled, urged on by the positive reaction. By  _ any _ reaction, really. “Because we’re going to be making an impromptu nuclear bomb out of stolen plutonium in order to detonate a murder-robot factory, all under the noses of men who are definitely  _ not _ going to be making things any easier for us.”

She took an easy pace forward, smiling under her raised visor. “It’ll mean a lot to me to have you with me on that.”

At those words, Symmetra’s eyes finally met hers. “With you,” she nodded with a smile, and with more certainty in her expression. “Yes. And you with me.”

“Of course,” Pharah grinned, offering her elbow. “Partners, right?”

“Partners,” Symmetra nodded, laying her hand on her angel’s armoured elbow. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup yup yuppers. Momma Amari, not exactly peachy pleased with Fareeha's paths in life, but of course she can't just come straight out and say it. High tensions and high emotions have a way of getting misconstrued sometimes, I think, and that's kinda what happened here.
> 
> You gotta have a little conflict, right? Nothing nearly so bad as some of my others, but I also didn't want it to just be smooth sailing from the get-go and square one, you know? Little something to keep things bouncing around a bit :D
> 
> Uh... yeah, that's about it I think! Comments and questions always welcomed and appreciated, all you lovely folks - sorry this one's a little late today, but I worked the past few (my schedule's really really scattered so I never know when I'll be working, heh). Anyway, I hope you liked it!
> 
> Come on back next time when Pharah and Symmetra get to play hide-and-seek with a bunch of armed soldiers! Or is it whack-a-mole? Well, whatever childhood or carnival game they decide to partake of, it involves them, a tank, a crate of plutonium, and a bunch of trigger-happy jerks.  
> Aren't first dates just wonderful? :D


	6. Fortuitous Misunderstandings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Symmetra leans in to take a closer look at a screen. Pharah definitely doesn't misinterpret this as her leaning in for anything else. To escape her embarrassment (give or take) Pharah needs to blow up the tank.

The tank rattled as it moved forward, jerking to the side as it thumped up against one of the cargo crates that had been toppled earlier.

“Need you strike  _ every _ obstacle?” Symmetra sighed with a raised eyebrow, taking a seat near Pharah. She hadn’t the faintest clue how to pilot one of these vehicles, but it was easier than standing and more stable as well. Which, given how the angel chose to  _ drive _ , would probably be important.

She was undeniably effective, however. Rough or not.

“Need I?” Pharah shook her head with a laugh. “Of course not. However, it’s not as if I own the thing. My opinion, if it makes it through the night still operational, we’ve missed a trick.”

Symmetra shrugged and tipped her head to the side in concession. “Fair point. Do you have a way of opening the doors?” She glanced away from the screen and toward Pharah’s dark lips as they curled back from her teeth and she chuckled. 

The soldier looked over and met Symmetra’s gaze with glittering eyes. “Do I  _ ever.” _

There was a  _ thump _ that was felt more than it was heard, like a hammer blow right in Symmetra’s heart, in her chest; for a second, she thought it was perhaps simply a sharp thrill due to the eye contact and the alluring words. Her heart raced in the aftermath.

No, though, it had nothing to do with her attractions for the chaotic guardian she’d been assigned this night - it was the tank’s main cannon, firing. However, the shell didn’t explode. It punched right through the relatively thin metal sheeting of the warehouse’s main door and flew off into the distance.

Symmetra spent a few seconds slowly raising an eyebrow. The gesture was punctuated by a distant explosion. “Hmm. Well, that would appear to have failed entirely. If only the tank had fired on these same walls earlier,” she sighed slightly, leaning in over Pharah’s shoulder and tapping at the front screen - at a hole which the tank had made when shooting at Pharah earlier. 

“If only, perhaps, it had demonstrated how that action would play out, hmm?” She turned her head with a soft chuckle, but was caught with a noseful of the soldier’s almost overwhelming scent: sweat and grease and propellant, a sharpness of smoke and a faint smooth note of plain soap lifting from her skin, and they knocked any thoughts or snarky comments right out of Symmetra’s head.

Pharah waited for a second or two as Symmetra just leaned over her shoulder and  _ stayed  _ there, breathing deeply, silently. The soldier slowly grew more and more uncomfortable - her heart sped up and her skin flushed with clamminess, her joints started to feel agitated like she just needed to move, something, somehow.

Except she really didn’t want to move  _ away, _ as Symmetra’s breath brushed softly against the skin of her cheek and neck. She also couldn’t exactly move closer.

Could she?

Slowly, she turned her head to face the Architech. It left them quite close together, and at such a perfect angle - with Symmetra leaning forward like that, her mouth was tilted sharply off to the side and it would be so perfect for a kiss, so deep and so-

Pharah swallowed heavily and tried to cut off the thoughts. It didn’t work. She was a  _ charge, _ she was a target, she was- she was infuriating and frustrating. She was probably the best person Fareeha had met. She was gorgeous and a little intimidating, and that was something that the soldier wasn’t sure she could say about almost anyone else. Symmetra was…

...she was leaning in.

The last fragments of Fareeha’s self-control practically made a noise as they shredded and she tipped her head forward to close the scant few inches between her mouth and Symmetra’s. She raised a hand but then forced it back down - armoured gauntlets weren’t the gentlest and she didn’t want to seem overly forward anyway.

Perhaps that was an odd thought to be having as she tipped her chin back a bit in a bid to get Symmetra’s lips to part. It worked, and Fareeha held back a moan with the rest of her breath as her tongue danced with the Architech’s. It was such a stark contrast to their first kiss, which had been a shock but sentimental and soft, where this one she’d seen coming and poured that anticipation out in frantic fire from her lips.

Symmetra moaned something, the words muffled against Fareeha’s lips, and the soldier joined right in. She nodded through the kiss and hummed heated nothings that were all encouragement and delight.

“Ph-Pharah,” Symmetra gasped as she pulled her head back sharply for a second.

“Symmetra,” Fareeha murmured, leaning forward to try to recapture those entrancing (and often delightfully sarcastic) dark lips.

“Pharah!” Symmetra insisted, her metal palm clunking against the chestplate of the Raptora suit as she pointed with the other hand to a screen on the soldier’s other side. “Look!”

Pharah shook her head briefly and then snapped it over. A dozen soldiers were filing into the warehouse from a door over on that side. Cold realization slowly washed over the soldier, like being dunked in ice-water after her first solo flight all over again.

“...oh.” Pharah cleared her throat, staring wide-eyed and blushing over at the screen (and, coincidentally or not,  _ away _ from Symmetra and hiding her blush). “So um… that’s what you were-”

“I-I was leaning over to inspect the screen,” the Architech swallowed, nodding as she tried to get her heart under control. It felt as if it were trying to escape through her ribs, through her teeth, and she had to bite it back and hold it down to keep it from running away. However, she found that she really didn’t  _ want _ to - she wanted to let it fly free.

“Not leaning in for a, um-” Pharah bit her lips together painfully as she started to berate herself internally for her misstep. She had a tendency, when she messed up, to play the part of a drill inspector with herself. Now was no exception.  _ WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT AMARI?!?!! Who- WHO the fuck do you think- _

“No, not um… not as such.” Symmetra leaned back a little, taking a deep breath to clear the intoxicating mixture of woman and machine from her nostrils, her lungs, her head. She wanted to keep breathing it in and letting it swirl her thoughts, but there was a job to be done first. Her eyes widened slightly and she slapped a hand down on Pharah’s shoulder. “Not- not unwelcome, however! It- I only wasn’t particularly…  _ entreating _ as much, but I didn’t- it wasn’t, rather-”

The Architech coughed lightly to clear her throat, and smiled as her guardian spun around to face her with an incomprehensible but wide-eyed expression. “Thank you, Pharah, that was- I quite liked that.”

“Th-thanks, um, no problem?” Pharah frowned at her own words and shook her head as bullets pinged gently off of the tank like hail on a tin roof. “Maybe- maybe Fareeha would be best for uh… things like that. Sorry, they- they’re getting an RPG ready out there and we should-”

“Oh, yes, yes of course!” Symmetra’s melodic laugh filled the small space over the gentle thrumming of the engine, as she sat easily in her seat again. “Of course, yes, let us be on our way indeed. There will be time later to discuss other matters.”

A chill sank deep into Fareeha’s bones at that thought as she urged the tank forward again, ripping through the warehouse’s main doors not unlike tinfoil. A little bit more sturdy, perhaps, but still posing no real resistance as a rocket streaked through the warehouse behind them.

_ Oh good. Now I get to have a relationship talk. Hooray. _ She clenched her jaw as she spun the tank forward through the camp in the rough direction of where she’d stored the plutonium. The camp was on high alert, now, and focused on the warehouse - the two watchtowers she’d noticed earlier had machine guns trained on them, and their flashes lit the night but their bullets did very little.

_ What the actual fuck have you gone and gotten yourself into now, Amari? _ Pharah shook her head a little as she swerved, knocking a stack of smaller wooden crates over and sending few soldiers scattering with shouts.  _ She’s not- this is not an option! This is not- you can’t- STOP THINKING ABOUT KISSING HER! _

She didn’t though. Couldn’t, really. The tank nudged sharply up against a low wall and jerked her out of her reverie as she thought about how much better kisses would be, without being in her armour.

Or without being in any clothes at all.

Swallowing heavily, Pharah straightened up in her chair and cranked up the Raptora’s cooling systems. She couldn’t be thinking about this kind of stuff. Not only was Symmetra an agent of a different corporation with possibly conflicting interests, she was also the target of the night’s mission and you were  _ never _ meant to get involved with targets.

Also, men were actively shooting at them, and Pharah knew she should be focusing on that first and foremost. A grenade thumped as it failed to do anything at all against the tank’s side, and she grinned a little. It was just so  _ easy _ to get distracted in here - it was safe, and quiet, and calm. Sure, they were being shot at, but there was no real worry. They were safe.

One of the four cameras on the left-hand side got shot out by a lucky bullet from somewhere, reducing their vision on that side accordingly, but even that hardly mattered. As long as one screen worked  _ somewhere _ , she could find her way around.

Symmetra’s mind followed not dissimilar paths to the soldier’s, but they were a little smoother. Less jagged and filled with shouting at herself - she wondered over the angel’s life, at home and abroad. What sort of part she might be able to play in it, and vice versa; as an Architech of the Vishkar Corporation, her first and foremost obligation was clear, of course.

_ Commitment. Not obligation. _ A slight frown played at her lips as she corrected herself mentally.  _ Vishkar is not an obligation, an obligation is something one would sooner avoid. A commitment is freely and gladly undertaken, and that is what Vishkar is. _

It did leave a question as to what was left, of course. With Vishkar playing such a clearly leading role in her life, would the soldier be happy with less? Perhaps there would be no future, indeed; only a few kisses and shared moments tonight. It would not be a horrible thing, were that to be the case.

Still, Symmetra quite hoped there could be more nights. More moments.

She didn’t know what spaces her own life held, not exactly - nor did she know any of the same for Fareeha. She knew very little indeed, and didn’t like it; however, it could be discussed and arranged. The world was far different from what it had once been, obstacles were not what they once were. Between telepresence and tele _ porters _ , distance mattered far less. Society had progressed much in some ways as well, at least, and Vishkar certainly - the only society for which she cared in the slightest - was entirely accepting. Any actions which did not lessen the greater good were permitted and celebrated, and this could surely not be seen as lessening the greater good.

At least, she was quite certain of it. Regardless of which, Symmetra was unlikely to be inviting Fareeha to Vishkar events or premises anytime soon. There were protocols to be followed for such things.

Outside of that, though, she was given wide discretion. Technically it had perhaps not been given with this particular scenario in mind, but as long as she could continue to deliver on her commitments - and she could, and  _ would _ \- there would be no issue.

A jarring, grinding noise pulled Symmetra’s mind from possible futures and snapped it suddenly back to the present. She glanced around at the screens, which were still and unmoving. Then, her eyes found Pharah who was practically a statue. “Pharah?”

“Please tell me your… batteries have recharged enough, or whatever, to manage a shield for us.” The soldier cleared her throat, leaning over and swirling her hand through a control to swing the turret around and fire off the main cannon at one of the two watchtowers. It crumbled to the ground.

“Of course,” Symmetra nodded. “A barrier will be of no concern. Have we arrived at the plutonium, then?” They would need to leave the tank to collect it, of course.

“Not… as such.” One armoured shoulder rolled in a shrug. “They may have scored a lucky hit with a rocket, and popped a link on one of the treads. At the moment, we’re pretty much stuck going in circles,” there was a clunk as the automatic systems finished reloading another shell into the tank’s cannon and Pharah gestured her hand loosely through the firing controls to set it off again.

The shell exploded against a building, not to much effect - but it was loud, and quite an intimidation tactic, and left some soldiers scurrying away from the falling chunks of flaming rubble. Others continued to fire at the tank, hoping to score another lucky hit.

“So you were thinking we could leave our crippled means of transportation?” Symmetra nodded. “Of course.”

“Glad you agree,” the soldier chuckled softly. “Because I do have an alternate plan, but I’ve got to admit that it’s not very good.”

“In comparison to…?” Symmetra chuckled lightly.

“Hey!” Pharah spun in her chair, relieved by the return of the sarcasm. At least it was comfortable, practiced, easy. “I have excellent plans!” Her grin sharpened into something teasing. “I don’t recall you complaining when I kissed you.”

“Oh, is that how it was?” Symmetra let out a laugh as goosebumps flowed pleasantly over her arms. “A  _ plan _ of yours, was it? Not a misunderstanding on your part?” She shook her head and stepped toward the armoured vehicle’s hatch. “Hmm, well, that inspires confidence in our upcoming venture,” she muttered.

With a laugh, Pharah stood from her seat and moved to the hatch. “Doesn’t it just? Don’t worry, you’ll feel more confident when I blow up the tank.”

“Blow up the-” Symmetra’s eyes widened and she frowned. Her vision unfocused slightly as she tried to decipher the angel’s meaning - and when she did, a slow smile spread across her lips. “Ahhhh, I see. Utilize chaos as cover; a means to our end.”

Pharah shrugged as she move toward the back of the tank, to the shell magazine. She unlocked it and swung it open, ignoring the alarms which blared when she did so. The shells weren’t too heavy - not for her, at least - and she started to pull them from their stacks one by one and set them down at Symmetra’s feet a few steps away beneath the hatch.

“If by ‘utilize chaos’,” she grunted as she set a high-explosive shell down on the floor, “you mean ‘blow up the tank so they’ll maybe think we’re dead or at least get distracted and thrown off-balance for a minute or two’, then yeah.” Her teeth glimmered in the flashing red alarm lights that filled the tank’s interior. “Let’s utilize some chaos.”

Symmetra only nodded with a smile. She could do nothing more, without a breath of air in her lungs to fuel it; angels were well-known for being breathtaking so she supposed it should have been no surprise.

_ Chaos. _ Was it really, though? She thought of passages of antiquity, the arrival of hosts heralded by “be not afraid” and the like; the concept that the order of some higher existence would appear as something so terrifying on Earth, something that would  _ require _ people to be warned away from their natural horror. Initially it was a distasteful and unpleasant thought - order was order, chaos was chaos, but there was a beautiful symmetry to the idea that came to her in the form of the geometry of dimensions.

As Pharah set another shell on the floor and turned away, Symmetra’s mind fell upon the concept of the hypercube. On the face of it, a relatively standard geometry. Yet, it was not a shape in and of itself - rather, it was, but it was also in a sense the representation of the impression of a larger-dimensional form upon the dimension in which she lived. It had been called the three-dimensional shadow of a four-dimensional object, and regardless of whether that was true it brought to mind another comparison from antiquity. A bootprint doesn’t look like a boot.

Perhaps order could also not look like order. From the right angle, with the right shift.

The thoughts fell neatly into place, already coalesced into shape. She didn’t spend time wading through them, fighting against frustration as she sought to decipher some truth or meaning - she only shivered slightly as the realization of the meaning sank in. It aligned so well with so much of life, how things which should be chaotic sometimes felt comfortable, gunshots or explosions, in certain situations. They were not the maelstroms they appeared to be, but rather chaotic impressions of a greater order.

It was something she had always known - the existence of a higher order to the universe - but something that she felt she had perhaps only glimpsed before. To see its shadow now, its footprints…

“Symmetra?” Pharah waved her hand in front of the Architech’s glazed-over eyes. “Hey.” She patted the woman gently on the shoulder. “You alright?”

“Alright?” The word came out as a bare whisper, but an excited one as she grinned and met Pharah’s eyes. “Far better than that. Let us go, then. Deal your supposed chaos - you will be protected. I will ensure it.”

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Pharah stepped next to Symmetra and shoved the hatch open. The gunshots became instantly louder as she wrapped her arms around the Architech. “That’s  _ supposed _ to be my job,” she muttered.

“Hmm.” Symmetra tipped her head slightly to the side. “Is it, now? I thought your job was to help me.”

“That’s what  _ you’ve _ decided my job is.” Pharah smirked and chuckled as Symmetra spun around in her embrace to face her with a grin.

“Yes, and protecting me is what  _ Helix _ has decided your job is. Yet, here we are.” She grinned widely across the small space which separated them. It was so comforting to know there was more going on, to know that a higher order and a higher power had set out the plan for events.

People put far too much faith in free will. It was a pointless venture - if free will existed, then there could not possibly be a right and a wrong. No person would  _ choose _ the wrong thing knowingly; morality and free will were mutually exclusive. Or at least, they were presuming that matters could be known and decided - and if they could not, how could one exercise free will? It would not be will if one were throwing a dart at random chance; free will could only exist if situations could be known, and if a right path existed, and if one did? Free will was pointless, it would never be exercised save for to follow that right path. The only path.

It was so simple.

“What have  _ you _ decided?” Symmetra smirked, eyes dancing with mirth in the unspoken irony of her own words as she wrapped her arms around the angel’s neck.  _ Decision _ . To call it such a thing was hilarious - there was no decision to it; the path was laid and they were simply to follow it. Free will was an illusion. A fuse had no free will, nor did a cog or a motor. All things were pieces of the grand design.

Pharah stared openly into those honey-gold eyes. Her mouth was cottony dry but she didn’t care in the slightest. There was obviously more to that question than simply the words of it, and it was completely, utterly, exhilaratingly terrifying. She’d never felt more afraid or more alive.

“Oh,” the soldier murmured softly with a smirk. “I’ve decided a thing or two.”

Symmetra giggled softly and tugged Pharah’s helmeted head closer, tipping her chin back to find the angel’s lips briefly beneath her hooked golden visor. “Then let us go. We have much ahead of us.”

“Yeah,” Pharah sighed as Symmetra turned around and braced herself for take-off. “Who  _ wouldn’t _ want to stop kissing in order to jump out into gunfire? Oh wait,” she chuckled, “that’s right. Me.”

Heedless of her own words, Pharah activated her jumpjets the moment she saw Symmetra’s blue shield blossom into existence around them, It would be quite obvious, but hopefully they could get away and clear quickly - and maybe it would go unnoticed in the chaos.

Pharah’s arm snapped straight out forward as soon as the G-forces flattened out, the hatch peeling past her shoulders. Symmetra kept herself tucked tightly in to avoid striking anything.

The concussion rocket had been designed with one very simple goal in mind: disruption. The primary purpose had been crowd-control, the ability to scatter a group. Of course, soldiers often got creative, and soon other uses had arisen: anti-materiel uses, domino effects.

Somebody, at some point, realized that it was perfect for clearing minefields. The rocket put out a lot of force in a very different way from most things, and would even clear out some anti-vehicle mines, presuming they weren’t magnetic.

It was also perfect for detonating the sorts of explosives that were designed to go off when they slammed into a wall or a vehicle. The sorts of explosives that might get loaded into a tank and shot out of the barrel - or, in a dire situation, pulled from their stacks and laid on the floor, warheads facing the starry skies.

The flames blossomed out, leaping volcanically from the tank’s hatch as the brightness seared Pharah’s eyes even through her automatically-adjusting visor. The fire enveloped them, flickering and flashing around the shield as she juiced her jets for everything they were worth. The concussive wave helped with that, flinging them out and away - roughly, off to the side, but very effectively.

If anybody saw something bright streaking out and away from the explosion that lit up the night, they didn’t shoot at it. Pharah hoped that the pair of them would get written off as a chunk of debris being blown free, or maybe even go unnoticed entirely.

Small bursts from her jets brought their tumbling flight back under control, and directed them over toward where she’d hidden the crate of plutonium. The shield faded away, but there were no bullets coming their way.  _ Mission success. _ Pharah grinned widely as her boots touched the ground.

The gesture slipped from her lips, though, as Symmetra threatened to slip from her hands. The Architech slumped but Pharah caught her, keeping her from falling and laying her gently on the ground on her back.

Unconscious and limp, Symmetra splayed out on the ground. Pharah frowned over her, but was relieved at the gentle rise and fall of the Architech’s chest - breathing, still, only unconscious.

“Symmetra?” Pharah shook one of her shoulders slightly, softly, but to no effect. She stroked a thumb briefly along the Architech’s cheek. “Hey, c’mon, get up. Can’t leave me alone like this.”

Long eyelashes fluttered before Symmetra’s lungs drew in a deep gasp of air as her eyes flew wide. She made a wordless, startled noise, reaching out suddenly and trying to sit up, but Pharah held her gently down by her shoulder.

“Hey, hey - it’s alright. You blacked out for a second. Probably the G-forces, I should’ve been gentler with the jets, sorry, I-”

“N-no,” Symmetra cleared her throat, resting her head back down against the ground. “No, it is quite alright. We successfully fled, then?”

“Quite successfully, I’d say.” Pharah grinned as shouts and explosions echoed in the night air and she slid her arm back behind Symmetra’s shoulders. “Here, lean on me - let me know if you get lightheaded, but you should be fine now that the worst of it’s worn off. Everyone’s a little wobbly after their first time in the centrifuge but there’s never any lasting damage.” She chuckled gently as she helped Symmetra to her feet.

“One of many reasons I never pursued becoming a pilot of any sort.” Symmetra groaned softly as her head swam, but she leaned heavily into Pharah’s embrace and managed to maintain her footing with no further problems - at least, no immediate ones.

“Ha! You and me both,” Pharah muttered, shaking her head as she led the way around a stack of crates. “Truth be told…” she hesitated for a second, letting Symmetra lean against the crates while she clambered up them to pull the metal cases down. “I was always terrified of flying. But when they offered me a jetpack, what was I supposed to do - say no? Ha, yeah right! Another question: how many of these cases are you going to need?”

Symmetra frowned for a moment. “How many are there? How much plutonium is in each? How large is the facility we are attempting to destroy?”

There was silence from the top of the stack of crates, that stretched on for a few moments. “I’ll just grab all six, then.”

“Almost certainly more than required,” Symmetra responded as Pharah started to climb awkwardly back down the crates. Balanced in her arms were six roughly suitcase-sized metal cases, with all of the appropriate placards and markings covering the outsides. Symmetra reached up and tugged the one off of the top of the stack.

“Ah, yeah, I’ll just get the other five,” Pharah laughed breezily. “No problem, don’t worry about it, I got this.”

“Oh, do you now?” Symmetra smirked as she studied the labels on her case. “I was going to offer to assist further, once I completed some calculations - but of course, if you have the situation under control, I will leave it to you.”

Pharah’s shoulders sagged as she sighed. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“What, you think sarcasm begets sarcasm?” Symmetra laughed brightly, a sound like crystal chimes tinkling in the wind. “What a ridiculous notion!” Her wide grin belied the truth of her words, however, and Pharah rolled her eyes in response and grumbled as she tried to keep  _ too _ much of a smirk from getting to her lips.

She didn’t try too hard, though.

“Now,” Symmetra nodded, “we have that under control.” An explosion sounded somewhere within the compound, distantly, followed by a thin scream that trailed off into the night air as Symmetra slowly frowned. “Hmm. Unfortunate timing. Very well: the compound at large is a chaotic mess. Yet, we have the  _ plutonium _ under control.”

“Nice save there.” Pharah’s voice came out a little bit strained. Plutonium was  _ heavy _ , and the cases were not easy to carry. Plus, she had to pinch the top one under her chin to keep them from sliding around. It wasn’t a dignified position. She suspected she looked less like a decorated soldier, and more like a paralegal or an office assistant out of some sitcom. “Are you  _ seriously _ going to make me carry five of these things while you just deal with one?”

There was no response at first, as Symmetra lost herself momentarily in calculations and designs. Over the years, many different formations had been developed for nuclear explosives - some more efficient, some less, some requiring very specific materials. Few were know entirely, given the dangerous nature of the knowledge, and it was certainly not her specialty.

However, her visor came loaded with assistive software, and the screen flowed through with numbers and diagrams. She muttered softly under her breath, oblivious to the outside world as different possibilities were considered, before being discarded and replaced by something new.

“Hmm.” She frowned as a few things became apparent. “All six cases is likely to be too many. However, we can hardly permit them to be found once more - we will bury them in the Omnium below.”

“Oh will we now?” Pharah huffed a chuckle. “Good to know. Now seriously. Grab another case.”

“They do not weigh so much,” Symmetra retorted idly, pulling another case off of the top of the stack. The added weight nearly made her knees shake for half a second, moreso than she’d anticipated, but she refused to let it show. “See? There is nothing to it. Now…”

She leaned forward and set the cases on the ground before crouching next to them. Waving her hands in an elaborate interweaving pattern, she soon brought into existence a low cart floating off of the ground on small repulsors. Chuckling, she set her two cases on the bed of it and stood.

“Well?” The Architech raised an eyebrow to Pharah. “Are you going to simply carry yours? It will slow us down substantially. I would suggest the cart.”

Sighing heavily, the soldier set her four cases down on top of the stack and gave it a gentle shove. The cart glided easily forward, and she shot Symmetra a smirk and a narrow-eyed glance. ”You know, sometimes, I think I prefer you all speechless.”

“Nonsense,” Symmetra waved a hand dismissively. “I have a lovely voice.”

Pharah had to laugh at that, abruptly but briefly. She couldn’t wipe the grin off of her face as she met Symmetra’s glimmering eyes in a way that sent her heart skipping just slightly. “Ehh,” she rolled one shoulder in a slight shrug. “It’s alright, I guess. Now, don’t we need to go get your Vishkar te-”

“Yes yes, the amplifier,” Symmetra nodded. She turned away on heel, eyes focused suddenly out on the camp. “It is being held in the storage shack northwest of where I was captive - the farthest structure from there. One of my captors complained over the length of his walk there.”

Pharah nodded, reached out, picked up Symmetra by grabbing her shoulders, turned her about ninety degrees to the left, and set her back down again. “That’s northwest. You’re welcome.”

“I-I  _ knew _ that,” she spluttered. “I wasn’t moving yet!”

Pharah chuckled as Symmetra took the lead, and she slung her rocket launcher to lean back against her shoulder at the ready. “Sure,” she muttered through a grin under her breath. The hovering dolly floated between the pair of them, moving easily at the slight push of her hand on the stack of cases.

The light flickered around them - no longer was one little fire started from some years-old fuel from a rusted truck the biggest concern around the camp. Alarm klaxons sounded and shouts drifted faintly overtop, fires crackled in a half-dozen places at least and every now and then another few explosions sounded, or bullets. Either somebody who thought they’d seen the intruders, or simply a crate of munitions catching fire.

_ Pretty much my theme song, _ Pharah grinned to herself. The biggest different between Helix and the military - when it came to moments like this - was how many people were breathing down her neck or shouting in her ear. It was one upside of the private company: she was granted a fair bit of free will.

As her eyes flicked over Symmetra briefly, though - glancing out at the surroundings as well, despite the shimmering gossamer blue of the shield that enveloped the Architech - she wondered how far Helix might think her free will  _ went. _

On the other hand, they didn’t need to know a damn thing. She wasn’t going to tell them about the Omnium and she wasn’t going to tell them about the nuclear materials. So far as the security corporation would know, Pharah had infiltrated the facility and secured the target, with an impressive slate of collateral damage.

No other support, no other objectives, no unseen surprises.

It was astonishing, sometimes, how very much reality could differ from the stories people told - to themselves, or to others. Pharah wore a faint, sad smile on her lips at the thought. She had never felt more like her own mother than she did right then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks, this chapter's a little shorter but that seemed like a good place to kind of split the action! Started to get a headache about halfway through editing it, heh, so uh... don't have a lot of words in my head for commentary right now XD
> 
> Oh although did I really say Symmetra's laugh sounded like tinkling crystal chimes or something? Do you ever read something and roll your eyes and then go "ugh, I wrote that. I did this. That was me." I kinda did that there XD (I mean, I'm not wrong, she's got a beautiful laugh just saying)
> 
> Anyway anyway anyway, yes it's a Pharah/Symmetra story, but as soon as I decided where it would occur in the timeline it became clear to me that it also had to be a story about a mother and daughter. The canon's a little confused on that, honestly - Ana talks about never sharing her doubts and guilt with Fareeha, but it's also canonical that Ana opposed Fareeha getting involved in military things, so... that would kind of imply pretty heavily some doubts and/or guilt, eh? Basically what I'm going for is that Ana really _did_ talk about bad feelings from the wars and such, but not necessarily frequently or openly. PTSD and wartime memories and all, it's not likely she'd come straight out and want to talk about any of it - but little dark comments here or sad tones of voice there painted a picture. Fareeha remembers a pretty clear picture of kind of confused guilt, even though Ana doesn't remember talking about it, because in her mind she didn't - what she talked about was so less than what happened, so pale in comparison to her reality, that it never registered.
> 
> ...also known as, hey there's my canon misalignment fix for the day and let's totally call it intentional rather than me trying to backdate things XD
> 
> Hey, whaddya know? I had more words for commentary than I thought! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go take some meds for a headache and explore Junkertown. See ya, folks! Have great days!
> 
> Come on back next time when Symmetra and Pharah retrieve what Vishkar's been working on. Turns out the Sonic Amplifier they deployed in Rio? Yeah, let's call that a prototype, small-scale run kind of thing. And hey, what do you think a Vishkar Architech could do with a big powerful Vishkar amplifier, hmm? And a bunch of plutonium? And a kickass warrior girlfriend (or whatever they are)? I'm willing to bet you can put two and two together on that one! :D


	7. Back Down the Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Symmetra gets her hands on that piece of Vishkar tech, and the two of them discuss some possibilities about maybe working together in the future. It doesn't seem like it'll be an easy thing, but anything worth doing is worth working for. Both of them have a few minutes to reflect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a day late! Editing was a little rushed, so please let me know of any mistakes/problematic passages! That's generally true, but particularly now, thank you :D

“So this thing’s an amplifier?” Pharah grabbed a soldier by the web harness around his chest and flung him firmly back against the wall. Before she could step forward and follow it up with anything more, Symmetra had her beam latched onto the man until he slumped to the ground.

“That is one use amongst several, yes.” Symmetra turned and brought a shield up once more, guarding their way forward. The camp was largely dedicated to fighting back the new conflagration which had sprung up around the destroyed tank, and there were fairly few soldiers in this section of the complex. Those who were around, however, were very much alert and on-guard.

“The others being…?” Pharah prompted, hiding behind the glowing blue oval from a stream of gunfire and launching off a rocket in return. She was starting to get a little low and had to be careful  to conserve her ammunition - anybody she could get at in melee range, she dealt with that way. Anybody up high got a rocket to take out whatever they were standing on. Usually.

Symmetra took a moment in consideration. “Security. It is a piece of a system, designed after one installed in Vishkar’s most recent development in Brazil. Upgraded, however; the system in Brazil ensures the facility of a single installation. This one - employed correctly in an appropriate support system - will ensure the security of an entire city. Utopaea.”

Pharah tipped her head back in an impressed nod. It was quite an assertion to make, and she knew it.  _ Security _ was rarely so simple - and that had her a little bit doubtful. However, brief history had taught her better than to openly insult Vishkar or imply anything negative there. “Impressive, definitely. What would it protect a city  _ from _ , precisely, if you don’t mind me asking?”

There was another moment of silence as Symmetra thought. The dolly hovered in between them silently, coasting effortlessly along and bearing its load of plutonium. The building which stored the amplifier was just up ahead.

“Within,” was the response that Symmetra settled on a few moments later.

Pharah waited for a further explanation, but none came. A slow chill descended on her - that could mean a lot of things, but none of them were really good. ‘Threats from within’ was rarely a  _ happy _ phrase when deployed, whatever it ended up entailing. However, she also thought it was probably the one which people most wanted to protect against.

The main problem being  _ how _ they tended to protect against it.

A man crouched on the roof of the small storage building shot down at them, and another two from the windows. Their bullets made no headway against Symmetra’s shield, and she sighed. “Take care of him, will you?” She gestured upward to the man on the roof. “I will arrange for the other two.”

“My pleasure.” Pharah grinned and waited for the flashes to stop from his rifle - she couldn’t hear an empty clip fall amongst the gunfire, but it was a fair enough guess. The Raptora could take a few hits anyway. She hit her jets and launched herself forward and up toward the assailant.

Her shoulder struck him and knocked him back, flinging the rifle from his hand. He drew a sidearm with surprising speed - may already have been reaching for it - and Pharah threw an arm infront of her face and spun, swinging a somewhat sloppy roundhouse kick at his head. It knocked him to the side and she followed through with a spin that brought her knee down across his back as she knelt on top of him and grabbed at his sidearm.

Twisting his arm back loosened his grip until she could yank the gun free and toss it off to the side. He grunted, but she elbowed him heavily in the head and then dragged him over toward the edge of the roof.

He groaned as she hopped down, the suit helping absorb the shock of the short fall - it wasn’t a tall building. Pharah didn’t devote a lot of care to ensuring the soldier  _ didn’t _ get hurt, though. She really didn’t care if he did.

When she let him slump to the ground and stepped back, Symmetra rendered him unconscious with that beam weapon of hers, and Pharah found herself eyeing it with interest. Not for the first time, either. Between that capability, and melting the lock earlier, it would be quite a handy tool.

“Don’t suppose Helix would be able to arrange to buy a few of those, hmm?”

Symmetra scoffed and shook her head. “Certainly not. Vishkar is very careful with their technology - the implications of its release could be disastrous. Can you imagine what havoc could be wreaked by this capacity, in the wrong hands?”

Pharah shrugged with a grin. “I suppose I can imagine a little havoc, yeah. I’m just saying it would be a pretty handy thing to have in a bind - range seems pretty limited in comparison, but for CQ missions… that’d be a real godsend.”

Curiously, she looked up from the weapon and met Symmetra’s eyes instead. She’d asked about  _ Helix _ , specifically. “Don’t suppose  _ I _ would be able to get my hands on one, would I?”

Symmetra blinked a couple of times, rapidly, and a slight frown crossed her lips. It was a different question with different implications, not the least of which being that she’d seen the sorts of rash decisions Pharah made. Something of the sort would be likely to ensure her survival for a good time longer - although, despite it all, Symmetra found that she had no doubt in the woman’s  _ survival. _ After all, angels could not truly die, could they?

“I… suppose I do not know. I could inquire.”

With a chuckle, Pharah turned to the door. “Well, let me know if anything comes of it. This isn’t exactly my usual style of gig, but if it comes up again I know I’d be happy to have it. Not like I’ll have you at my side to count on every night, right?”

“No,” Symmetra answered reflexively, but softly. Almost thoughtless murmurs. “No, you won’t.” Neither would she - she was quite enjoying the night, all in all. It had its frustrations but they always did.

She was a solo operative, Symmetra, Vishkar’s scalpel deployed into the most sensitive situations. Others had been tried, teammates or partners, but she quickly tired of their ineptitude or their bossiness, or found some other reason to deny them entirely.

It hadn’t taken long for the facts to become clear: Symmetra worked alone. She could, as  _ Satya _ , function alongside the other Architechs of course - they built and designed in a sort of harmony, although she found herself (ironically and laughably) thinking that they were too cold in her approach. It was a delight to be on  _ that _ side of that particular issue, for once.

That was Satya, though. Symmetra could not tolerate such things. The penalty for a misstep in Satya’s work as an Architech was simply a delay, perhaps a punitive measure if things went poorly enough but they never did. The project might be slowed for a few days while they found a way around the problem. It was no real concern.

As an operative, however, as  _ Symmetra, _ things were quite different. The penalties for failure ranged from pain to, quite often, death. She was no stranger to bullets nor explosions - even if she survived, but failed in a mission, the consequences were far more dire than a few days’ delay or a percentage increase in budget for a project.

As a result, she tolerated no shortcomings in the partners Vishkar had attempted to assign her. Or rather, the ones  _ Sanjay _ had tried to assign her. She knew that she was a pet project of his; she’d helped solidify his position in the company, and he had done the same for her. Vishkar had elevated her beyond her beginnings, and he had aided in raising her even higher still. She was grateful to him for it.

Yet, tonight - though there _ had _ been a few frustrations - she found herself quite enjoying the partnering. It was more than tolerable, so much better than tolerable.

...and it would not happen again.

Vishkar and Helix had no interoperability - how could they? Officially, Vishkar never took any such action as this. As a covert situation, it could hardly be repeatedly carried out with a company as visible as Helix. Symmetra knew that Sanjay would say no the moment she suggested it.

She also knew that she  _ was _ going to suggest it. Even though he would say no.

However, there was something to the rephrasing Pharah had undertaken. While Vishkar could clearly not work alongside Helix, perhaps Symmetra could still work alongside Pharah. 

Symmetra smiled at the thought.  _ A cheeseburger. Such a simple lure, such a simple bargain. _

 

\---

 

As it turned out, a combination of close-quarters athleticism, and shields and the photon projector’s fairly unique capabilities, made for  _ very _ short work of soldiers within a small space. Pharah was a blur of fists and knees, black-and-gold armour and bright-flaring jets. Soft but bright blue light illuminated every surface as Symmetra, shielded, sent soldiers crumbling to their knees.

It didn’t even take them a full minute to disable every one of the dozen who stood inside the moderately-sized storage room. Pharah didn’t even have time to properly break a sweat - she was breathing a little more heavily when she regrouped with Symmetra near the overhead door, and grinning widely as well.

“Well, it’s official,” she chuckled, gently nudging Symmetra’s elbow with her own. “You’ve ruined me for other operations. I’ll need to actually  _ work _ for them!”

Symmetra laughed, shaking her head as she keyed a sequence into a large metal crate on a truck which took up most of the middle of the room. “Have you so little faith in my ability to conjure a simple cheeseburger?” Her eyes flicked over briefly in amusement. “Interesting.”

For a moment, the oblique reference threw Pharah for a loop. She was left confused as she tried to figure out how a cheeseburger would help her work less, or what it had to do anything - but then, she recalled the exchange at the bottom of the excavation shaft. She didn’t exactly know how to respond, but she found herself grinning delightedly at the idea of that; Symmetra calling her for further jobs and subsequent work.

She wondered if, perhaps, Helix would be willing to make a space for the Architech. Probably not openly - or at least, not knowing who she actually was. Still, Fareeha had a few friends, and she was  _ quite _ certain that Jesse McCree could arrange a perfect false identity for Symmetra.

“You know…” Pharah shrugged, “there might be a way we could keep working together, actually. At least sometimes.”

“I thought of that,” Symmetra admitted with a slight sigh, stepping back as the metal crate whirred and a soft alarm sounded as it unfolded and opened itself up. “Vishkar would be highly unlikely to enter an interoperability agreement of that sort with Helix. My very existence is denied entirely; Vishkar officially undergoes no operations such as these. You have of course been sworn to the same secrecy.”

“Of course,” the soldier confirmed, stepping closer. “However… two can play at that game. You’ve got two identities already - how would you feel about possibly picking up a third?”

Slowly, Symmetra turned away from the crate. She was caught somewhat between desires; she had never actually  _ seen _ this new amplifier, and Vishkar always had a way of making their creations so effortlessly gorgeous. Yet, at the same time, Pharah’s words held such implication and such promise.

So did her smirk, peeking out from underneath her gleaming golden visor.

“What is it you have in mind?” Symmetra quirked an eyebrow as the visor retracted, revealing her angel’s whole face.

Pharah shrugged, leaning back against a wall. “Well… Helix has a lot of interest in unique capabilities. Outside contracting happens occasionally, at least, and there would definitely be a lot of things you’d bring to the table. I’ve got some friends who could arrange for new papers to be worked up for you - new name and all of that. Maybe… maybe you could join up? Come with me.”

She wasn’t really used to hesitation and anxiety in this way. They struck her sometimes, certainly, but usually in an instant - that moment in the field when bullets were flying and you had to be two places at once. It was a sharp anxiety, a stuttering hesitation, reaching a fork in the path while being chased onward. She didn’t have time to stew in it.

This was a little bit different, though - while it only took an instant, it was a  _ calm _ instant and that made all the difference in the world. There was plenty of time for the anxiety to simmer in her gut and develop into something that reached up and clenched tendrils around her heart, as she watched Symmetra’s face and waited for a response. Only a moment, after offering her invitation, yet it felt almost interminably long.

Technically, she hadn’t asked Symmetra to  _ be _ with her, but that was still what it felt like, because in Fareeha’s mind weren’t just thoughts about the battlefield. She wasn’t just picturing herself and the team, Raptoras gleaming bright blue in the sun and ensconced in bubble barriers of the same colour, untouchable to all the ills of the battlefield.

No, she was thinking of quite a lot more than that. Thinking of sitting down for tea with smiles and laughter, of walking along paths or just sitting on the couch; she thought of tangled sheets and stolen breaths, long nights and early mornings. Fights and agreements and inside jokes. All those things that made a life.

The mind leapt to things sometimes. You saw a person on the subway, and wondered how they would kiss; you were talking and thought about what it would feel like if you punched the person right in the mouth - it wasn’t because you found them offensive, necessarily, it just happened. It happened now to Fareeha in such a stream that it left her a little bit breathless and unsteady, and grateful to be leaning back against the wall as she waited a few seconds for Symmetra’s soft response.

“Do you really think that could ever work?” Symmetra frowned slightly, eyebrows drawing in as she leaned back a little.

Technically, Fareeha hadn’t offered that life which had flickered so briefly through her mind, but she wasn’t thinking about that. If she  _ had _ been, she would have realized how ridiculous it was anyway - would have laughed about it, because they were only momentary thoughts. Not necessarily things that couldn’t happen, but also not necessarily the same as actual desires. You might for an instant think about punching somebody in the face, but that didn’t  _ necessarily _ mean that you actually  _ wanted _ to.

She wasn’t thinking about that, though. She was right in the middle of thinking about leaning forward with a giggle, a soft thick sweater wrapped around her shoulders, and capturing Symmetra’s lips in a gentle kiss - she was right in the middle of that image when Symmetra spoke up, and Fareeha’s mind stumbled over the words and ran blank.

“I- uh,” Pharah cleared her throat. “I’m… I mean-” she was just about to say  _ ‘I don’t know, but I want to find out,’ _ when she realized she hadn’t voiced  _ any _ of those thoughts. Symmetra was only talking about Helix.

The realization came as a huge relief, which bubbled out as a loud, full laugh.

Symmetra was confused by the laugh, but she’d long since made her peace with the knowledge that she simply would sometimes not understand why people did things. It was still often frustrating - particularly if she felt like she was being judged for it - but she no longer wasted much thought for it.

Pharah laughed for a few moments before she pulled herself under control and shook her head, still chuckling. A golden bauble in her hair clicked gently against the inside of her helmet as she grinned to Symmetra. “Sorry, I- that was… just, random thought in my head and it was funny, that’s all.”

Symmetra nodded gratefully as Pharah shrugged and pushed herself forward off of the wall. 

“I don’t know if it would work, but I think it maybe  _ could, _ if you’re interested. We could work on drafting up a profile for you - say you’ve been working as private security, or a bounty hunter or a collections agent, something like that. See if Helix is interested and what they’d want. Presuming that’s something you’d be comfortable with, and would want, of course.” The soldier raised an eyebrow to give form to the unspoken question:  _ is it? _

Symmetra nodded, a smile spreading across her lips. “That sounds like an avenue worth inspecting more closely, at the very least. I do not know whether my schedule would permit anything of the like, or whether I truly  _ would _ wish to work for such accompany as Helix, but…” her gaze flicked away furtively before meeting Pharah’s again as she smiled. “I  _ would _ like to work alongside  _ you _ again.”

Pharah’s cheeks hurt a little bit with the force of her grin, and her heart did all sorts of interesting things in her chest. Excellent things. “Well, then, we’ll need to look into it. We should swap numbers or something, but first-” she cleared her throat and nudged her chin toward the apparatus behind Symmetra which had finished its motions.

Symmetra turned around, and laid eyes on the amplifier for the first time. It was unlike she’d imagined, but every bit as gorgeous - a complex cluster of tubes and conduits between spherical and ovoid modules, all gathered underneath a gleaming white hemispherical dome. It looked almost like some mechanical sea creature, with a soft body and tentacles hidden away tucked underneath a shell, and she stepped closer to it with reverence.

Her prosthetic fingers ghosted across the dome’s surface, as tall at its peak as she was and the same dimension in width. She snuck her hand underneath the shell where a small emblem was embossed smoothly into its surface and produced a wire with a pair of connectors on the end. One, she plugged into her metal arm; the other went into her visor.

“Give me a few moments,” she nodded to Pharah, gesturing her hand closer. “Bring the plutonium over here, if you would, and open the cases.”

Her visor scrolled across with text and code - the amplifier had not been one of her projects, and she did not understand all the minutiae of its operations, but Vishkar was a clever organization of clever people and the  _ functions _ were easily apparent enough. The device began to hum and whirr softly behind her, sounding almost as if it was breathing. It was intensely calming.

Pharah started to pull cases off of the stack and open them. Inside of each was a thick, dense foam, with a spherical mass nestled in the middle. A dullish grey metal - it looked quite like lead, to her, but smoother. She was more than a little worried about touching it, and found herself leaning back away from the open cases and wondering whether the crawling sensation in her gut was fear or radiation seeping into her body.

Symmetra reached out a hand and stopped Pharah after she’d opened three of the cases. “That will be all. Thank you. Give me a few minutes. Ensure that my concentration is not broken.”

With a grin, Pharah stood and tipped her rocket launcher back against her shoulder. “Oh, that’s something I can do. Come out front when you’re done - put up a few of those turrets first, though, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Rolling her eyes slightly, Symmetra waved her hand and brought three turrets into existence on the ceiling - simultaneously. The amplifier gave her substantially greater capabilities. “I will be quite safe here, there is only the one entrance.”

“I know, I know,” Pharah chuckled and stepped toward the door. “I’m just a worrier.”  _ Maybe I get that from mother. Is this what it was like to be on her side? _ She smirked a little and shook her head.  _ Don’t you just love irony? _

Symmetra let her breathing slow as she heard the door close; she dialed up the noise-dampening of her visor’s earpieces just in case combat was about to commence. She spent a few moments focused on planning, on calculation - she’d never made an explosive like this before.

New things always held joy and anticipation; every new design was a puzzle waiting to be solved, or even to be created. She felt as if she was running a maze even as she brought it into being, every thought or decision branching off into others. Like the growth of crystals, it all followed specific patterns even if they might not be immediately apparent to any given observer, and it brought a soft happy smile to her lips.

She breathed deeply and slow, no thought going into her body. There were no people here and she didn’t need to police herself. She could simply be, and work in peace.

Symmetra began to dance with a smile as she worked, finished now with her designs and moving instead to creation. She respected several of her peers, and every Architech was capable, but she knew herself to be unique amongst them.

There was a beautiful irony to it, though. With hard-light, uniquely out of her experience, it was not  _ she _ who was the cold one. Throughout her life people had considered her distant and aloof, cold or unfeeling, yet with hard-light that was inverted. There, it was her peers who were stiff and uncomfortable with it, all hard edges and rigid spines, procedural and mechanical.

She did have some respect for that, yes, but that was not the way to greatness. Her own path, however, was. That of intuition,  _ coupled _ with thought. The perfect meeting of heart and head,  _ that _ was hard-light.

In fact, she quite suspected that was what she loved about it. Creating was the one time she felt truly and consistently whole, as if her thoughts and feelings aligned and caused no issue; there were no failures or shortcomings and her abilities were nothing short of extraordinary. All because her heart and her mind were in balance.

Perfection. They were perfect moments, and she cherished them.

People told her she didn’t care. At first, she’d been hurt, but now she only laughed inside at their foolishness. Her problem had never been that she  _ didn’t _ care. It was that she cared so much. They didn’t understand, they never understood - never could comprehend just how important things were. All things.

Her heart skipped at the beauty of what she made; wiring and circuitry, energizing components - nothing so barbaric and harsh as the first nuclear explosives. There was a certain elegance, she supposed, to using an explosion in order to compress matter into the hyper-densities required for such an energetic reaction, but compression was not the only method.

Old nuclear explosives were pressure-cookers, and this that she was making was an open artisanal brick oven. No core of explosives to compress and energize the plutonium charge, but rather a series of far simpler and smoother mechanisms - advances in technology had brought much, and forces were easier to manipulate than they once had been. She could as easily crush an object as make it float as her turrets did.

Symmetra sighed as the bomb coalesced finally, hovering forty centimetres above the ground. It didn’t bob on its repulsion field, and she stroked her fingers reverently along its surface - a perfect sphere that rose up to her waist. Her fingertips couldn’t detect the slightest imperfection in its smooth shell, because there were no such imperfections. A screen was embedded flawlessly into its surface, to be controlled by touch.

However, she was not yet finished. There was more to be done.

Once more, she began to sway lightly, unminding, carrying her motions through into her creation. The most perfect moments of her life were those still ones, where the world paused and let her be about her business.

Her mind didn’t stray from its task, but a part of it did think back to some other moments of stillness. Moments of safety. Moments with her newfound angel.

 

\---

 

Pharah grinned as she pulsed her jets and spun, corkscrewing into a man’s midriff and knocking him off of the crate he’d climbed onto. He yelped as he flew backward, and she snapped off a concussive rocket at another who opened fire on her. Behind him, somebody was readying a launcher of their own, of some sort, and her metal boots skidded as they hit the ground.

When the rocket started to fly, she launched herself up into the air and ejected a compartment full of chaff from one of the legs of her suit. Tinfoil shreds laced with IR emitters glittered briefly in the light of her jumpjets, and a few seconds later there was a dull  _ thump _ as the rocket exploded amidst the cloud of foil.

She pulled her knees in to her chest, letting herself tumble through the air. It was pitch black now, but starting to look slightly like a hint of blue off in the distance. Sunrise would be coming before too long, but for the time being she was still all but invisible against the dark sky whenever her jets were off.

It was fun to be a projectile, curving parabolically through the air. She flung out her legs and arms to stop her spin, and twisted to change her path through the air. Skydiving had always been fun, and it was only better with a suit of armour around you.

Just before she hit the ground, she twisted to point down feet-first and popped her jets on, just for a second. The manoeuvre softened her landing, but she still sank down on her knees as she turned and lashed out with a swift kick aimed at the knee of the person holding the rocket launcher. They cried out as they fell to the ground, but she was already carrying through by twisting to the side and bringing her heel snapping down against their head.

Then, there was silence. Relative silence, at least - her breaths rushed through her throat and her heart pounded in her ears, but there was nothing else nearby. Distantly were shouts and crackling flames, the hums and whirrs and roars of engines. Sirens and alarms, but none of that was of any concern to Pharah.

The light from the camp was far greater than the suggestion of sunrise at the horizon - the flames reached up into the black sky angrily, as if trying to drive back the night themselves. Pharah wondered how hard they would try to fight the fires. Whether they might evacuate and abandon the camp, at least for a while.

Given that they were planning on blowing the whole thing to hell, she sort of hoped that they  _ did. _

She also found herself wondering if Helix would have the place on live satellite surveillance. Covert ops weren’t exactly their strong suit, but tonight she actually found herself thankful for that. This would have been a far more frustrating and stressful night with somebody at base camp constantly peering over her shoulder.

Not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to take some of the steps which she had.

There had been a time where that thought might have given her pause. When she would have felt like she’d done the wrong thing, if she knew what she’d done wouldn’t be supported by the brass.

She was glad she’d grown past that. Evolved from the idea that a soldier’s first duty is to follow orders. Her first duty now was protection, doing what was  _ right, _ and she was confident that she’d done that this night.

...besides which, it wasn’t as if she was planning on divulging most of this to Helix. They’d know that the package had been retrieved, and that it had taken longer than expected. Engagement had resulted in the outbreak of fires, and when Pharah had left, there had been alarms and sirens and flames everywhere.

She was already rehearsing the mild look of shocked confusion she was going to wear if and when the total destruction of the compound was mentioned. Around Helix, she was known for having quite the poker-face, so the right balance of expression and suppression would need to be struck.

It wouldn’t be a problem, though. She’d done it before.

Pharah looked around and saw no movement. Bursting up into the air gave her a much better view, and she still saw nothing: her visor picked out no movement and no threats. Satisfied - at least for the moment - she let herself descend gently onto the roof of the storage building and sat, dangling her legs over the edge and looking out over the camp and up at the stars.

It was so rare to have a moment like this, to just sit and think. Part of that, at least, she brought on herself - never really  _ content _ to sit still, she tended to fill her time with activities. Running down to the gym, checking through dossiers, heading down to the firing range. About the most relaxed she got was when she read, but even that she didn’t let go simply.

Relaxation itself was an undertaking for her, usually consisting of running a bath and lighting candles, brewing tea, and letting herself soak for a good long time as she drank and read her books. Not the good hardcover ones, of course, not so close to water - some people laughed at her for reading paper books, but she loved it. Like with the tea, half of what she liked was the ritual.

Turning the pages, steeping the leaves, strainers and bookmarks and teapots and shelves overflowing with tomes. You didn’t get that with teabags. You didn’t get that with reader screens. 

She had both, of course, for rushed times or travel - having a thousand books in one tiny tablet was excellent at times, and being able to stuff a couple of foil packs in your pocket as you ran out the door had some upsides over loose-leaf and a strainer, but for relaxation? For relaxation, there was no substitute for paper and a pot of steaming, steeping tea.

Although she had to admit, this was kind of nice too. Just sitting on a roof and looking gently up at the stars.

She heard a noise, felt some gentle rumbling from beneath her. Leaning forward over the edge, she saw the building’s overhead door rolling up, and hopped forward off of the edge.

Symmetra was standing behind the door, with a sphere hovering next to her. Pharah glanced around, but saw no sign of the amplifier.

“What’s that?” She gestured to the sphere and kept looking around. “Where’d the amplifier go?”

“The amplifier has been returned, to Vishkar. Teleported. I told them we should never have sent through means as conventional as shipping - warned them that the risks of interception were too great.” Her voice sounded a little, tiny bit irritated, but for the most part she sounded smug. Looked it, too, smirking slightly.

Pharah chuckled and tipped her head. “Well when you’re right, you’re right, I suppose. Don’t you need it to make the bomb, though?” She hadn’t really been counting on it. The soldier had decided a while back that the primary purpose of the amplifier was a bargaining chip, really - and she didn’t blame Symmetra for that. She was tucking a few of those away for herself, to deal with Helix afterwards.

“It has already been created.” Symmetra patted the sphere floating next to her, with a smile, and stepped forward. It kept pace with her, and her other hand pulled the hover-dolly loaded with the remaining plutonium along.

One of Pharah’s eyebrows raised for a second, because this had to be a joke she didn’t get. That wasn’t a bomb, it was just a big floating white ball. Her lips split, curled into a grin, all poised for a snarky comment to that effect, when her mind helpfully provided her with a quick recapture of the night’s events.

She shut her mouth with a chuckle. If Symmetra said it was a bomb, it was a bomb.

“I’ll tell you one thing for certain,” Pharah shook her head slightly, readying her rocket launcher and turning on heel. “You definitely know how to make a gal feel out of her depth.”

Symmetra frowned slightly, following the soldier through the compound. “I will  _ take _ that as a compliment.”

“Good!” Pharah snickered, flashing a grin barely back over her shoulder. “Because it was one.”

A smile leapt to Symmetra’s lips, unbidden, as she walked in Pharah’s metaphorical shadow. She’d received hundreds of compliments, perhaps thousands, but most of them were in fact something else in disguise. 

Sanjay’s were legitimate recognition, but they were directed at the  _ mission _ as much as at her; he was thanking the universe, for bringing him what it had brought. She was part of that, yes, but it was never truly  _ her _ he was thanking, just to do so. It was encouragement, a foolish attempt at ringing a Pavlovian bell.

He underestimated the strength of his praise.

Vishkar thanked her, and she accepted that with the appropriate respect and reverence. They were not compliments, but rather appropriate and deserved recognitions of ability.

In childhood, other children had complimented her openly, frequently. It was only ever a trap, however; were she to step forward to accept one of their compliments, they were always ready and happy to pull it out from under her feet and watch her fall in its wake as they laughed.

Compliments were not something she was any stranger to, but compliments like that one were somewhat alien.

She liked it.

 

\---

 

There were no real interruptions as they made their way back to the warehouse - they circled wide toward the edges of the compound, but not as far as the fences. The soldiers were largely focused near the fires, or near the perimeter.

Pharah noted gladly that they were fleeing the complex, or that at least some of them were. Trucks loaded with soldiers and nothing else revved their engines and drove off through the front gates. Surely they’d be going for reinforcements, or to find a new home base - she’d let Helix know about all of this, of course.

They wouldn’t do anything about it. Not unless somebody hired them to.

With a sad sigh, Pharah shook her head. They were good people, largely, but they weren’t police. It wasn’t their job to protect anybody except for the people who paid them to - she could tell herself that it was a question or purview and jurisdiction. Namely, that they didn’t  _ have _ any jurisdiction.

She was even certain that it was true. For some of them. Others, though, she knew were far more interested in the bottom line.

That was why she was needed, though. They needed good people to keep the less-than-ideal ones in line. To remind them when something was wrong.

She was glad to be that person.

They found themselves at the door of the warehouse without encountering another soldier directly - they’d seen several, but managed to avoid detection themselves. The warehouse itself showed clear signs that people had  _ been  _ there: the unconscious soldiers were now gone, which Pharah was somewhat surprised to see.

She’d been half-expecting to walk in and see them stripped of their clothes and their watches, anything which could be pawned off, but left here to deal with their fates. It was a little bit reassuring that their enemy here tonight wouldn’t so quickly abandon their own.

When she got to the edge of the excavation shaft within the warehouse, Pharah hesitated and glanced over to Symmetra. “Please tell me I don’t need to carry that thing down there. That thing look heavy, and if I burn out one more set of thermocouples my mechanic’s going to slip engine grease into my tea.”

Symmetra turned slowly and fixed Pharah with an incomprehensible look. She said nothing for a few seconds as Pharah’s tension rose, and finally the soldier sighed and stepped forward. “Alright, fine, but you’d better hope we don’t need to get out in a hurry. Maybe, by some miracle, my jets will still be functioning.”

“I quite suspect they will,” Symmetra shrugged easily, crossing her arms thoughtfully. Behind her, the spherical bomb continued to drift forward. Pharah noticed it just as it crossed over the edge of the shaft and hung for a second over empty space.

Pharah had just a moment of total panic before she leapt into action, and after the bomb. With a shout, she tried to wrap her arms around it, but it was too wide and her hands couldn’t find purchase. She yelled and swore as she tried desperately to slow its fall - she didn’t know what would happen when it hit the bottom of the shaft, but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

It ended up below her, with her still trying frantically to get a hold on it. Suddenly she felt her weight shift forward as it felt like she was being compressed within her suit. There was a loud humming noise and she let out a strained groan as she slipped off of the smooth spherical surface.

She only fell about ten inches to the ground. Not even enough time to really call it a fall, in fact. Her heart hammered and her lungs pulled in desperate gulps of air as she inspected the bomb in a panic. It seemed alright - it wasn’t cracked or blaring alarms or flashing or glowing. It just floated there about a foot off of the ground at the bottom of the excavation shaft.

Pharah heard laughter from above her, drifting downward.

A few seconds later, she was back there, the jets at her back sizzling as her cheeks did the same. “You did that on purpose.”

“Yes,” Symmetra nodded, laughing openly, “yes I did! And it was even more delightful than I’d expected!”

Pharah tried to maintain a stern expression as the Architech laughed. She really did, and at first - as her heart still thumped with adrenaline that ran like electric ice in her veins - she succeeded. She crossed her arms, she huffed, she clenched her jaw…

...but Symmetra just kept laughing. Only started laughing harder, in fact, as Pharah stood there stoic and grumpy.

There was only so long anything could be tolerated.

As the fear started to release its hold on her and the panic started to ebb, a snicker escaped out of Pharah’s nose. As her shoulders started to shake, she lost all of her hold and joined Symmetra in laughter.

Ribbing the rookie was pretty standard practice. It wasn’t her first night of it, not in the slightest, and she actually quite liked it in the long run. It made her feel like she was part of the team.

“Alright,’ Pharah admitted, “alright, I guess you got me.”

“You  _ guess?” _ Symmetra looked at her with one eyebrow steeply arched in disbelief. “I heard you screaming the whole way down.”

Pharah’s lips pursed heavily and she exhaled, but it shifted into a chuckle too quickly. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Well done, you scared the rookie.” She stepped closer and clapped a hand on Symmetra’s shoulder as the Architech continued to laugh, and Pharah’s dark lips curled into a grin.

After all, two could play at that game.

Symmetra’s laugh gave way instantly to a shriek as she toppled out into empty space, a strong hand yanking her off her feet and then letting go entirely. She flung her arms out to the side but there was nothing to be done to slow her fall, nothing she could manufacture, and no shield which would save her.

Of course, Pharah caught her, landing softly with Symmetra in her arms like a bride. A screaming, panting, angry bride.

“That was  _ not _ funny,” Symmetra insisted. “When I did it, it was funny.”

Pharah grinned and laughed briefly. “Oh really? Huh, interesting, because I remember  _ both _ of those a little differently…”

This time it was Symmetra’s turn to glare angrily, and to her credit, she lasted a good five or ten seconds longer than Pharah had. The soldier just stood there with the same wide grin and soft, dark chuckle, though, and it became impossible for Symmetra to uphold her mask.

After the adrenaline wore off, only Pharah’s amusement remained, and it was somewhat infectious.

Symmetra rolled her eyes and shook her head, laughing softly - almost derisively,  _ almost _ , but not quite. Like it was  _ trying _ to be derisive, maybe. She tucked a few stray strands of hair back behind her ear and stepped over to the bomb.

“You are lucky you are so capable, else I would be reticent to work alongside you again,” she muttered under her breath.

Pharah nudged her shoulder gently. “Luckily for me, I  _ am _ so capable.” She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially behind Symmetra’s head. “Besides… I don’t believe you.”

Symmetra spun around with a mischievous grin. “Is that any way to treat a partner? Disbelief?”

Pharah’s eyes narrowed as she smirked. “That’s a trick question, it’s a trap, and I refuse to answer it.”

Symmetra laughed lightly, grinning as her golden eyes danced in delight. “A trap! Well, that’s hardly any way to treat a partner, either, is it?”

With a chuckle and a shrug, Pharah stepped to the door. “Ehh, maybe, maybe not. One thing seems pretty clear though,” she laid a hand on the door’s handle and shot a grin back over her shoulder. “We’re one hell of a pair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to update this yesterday, sorry! I had an uncle's birthday to attend, and then today ended up being very much busier than I expected. I wanted to make sure this was pretty good before I put it up, so it took a minute, heh, sorry.
> 
> However! I did, yesterday, decide how this is all going to end. I think we're actually closer to it than I'd originally been thinking, heh, but I suppose it does somewhat depend. I know the ending, but just _before_ the ending is a part that could go any one of three different ways: there's one option that doesn't hurt much at all, one option that's a little rough, and then another option that's more rough again. No matter what it all ends happily, but I'm curious about which you'd like, lovely readers!
> 
> So, on a scale of 1-3, how much do you want this to hurt? 1 being really not at all, and 3 being... I'd say moderate pain. Nothing too too bad. 2, of course, is in between them - so let me know in the comments! Thank you! :D
> 
> Anyway, yeah, this one's a little sparser on the action and more about thought, I hope it all came across well! Thank you folks for reading and liking, commenting, and passing it along to friends!
> 
> C'mon back next time when they push forward into the Omnium. Explosives and a nuclear bomb in a confined space - couldn't possibly go badly, right? Heh. The soldiers above might be fleeing the compound, but the ones down here feel plenty safe from the fire. However, they haven't exactly been deaf to the alarms up above...


	8. Unhallowed Halls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pharah and Symmetra enter the facility - whatever it is , exactly. Of course, a place that was designed to operate with power, and is currently lacking said power, does pose a few problems. Like it's the only problem that's arisen that night, right? The two deal with what's thrown at them, but then run up along a slightly worrying realization. Every worrying realization, however, has a crazy-ass plan that can counter it out. Symmetra provides the former. The latter? That's Pharah's wheelhouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late! I went to a concert.

 

 

Pharah shivered a little as she stepped over the threshold into the Omnium. She held the heavy metal door open behind her, letting Symmetra come through pushing the hover dolly in front of her and followed by the bomb. She shut the door behind them and turned the latch closed.

The hallway was almost eerily normal, and would have looked at home in any underground installation. It looked like any bunker Pharah had been to with the military - with the exception of a string of lights running along one side that had been nailed in place to illuminate the hall.

“No power,” Pharah whispered, relieved to find that it was true.

“Why would they delay in starting the generators, if they had the plutonium already?”

Pharah glanced over at Symmetra’s question, and was a little annoyed to realize that she should have asked it herself, earlier. “Good point.” She breathed out through her nose, stepping forward softly - there was a slight hum down here, but little sound otherwise, and she didn’t want to get caught out because of her heavy footsteps.

“Perhaps they had not yet gathered enough,” Symmetra suggested softly.

“Could be.” Pharah trained her rocket launcher on the end of the hallway, just in case something leapt out. Symmetra’s shield floated a few feet in front of them, whirring softly. “Or maybe they needed something else too. Startup codes, or- or maybe something as simple as an order. Can’t imagine why they’d be doing this for themselves. Maybe whoever hired them hadn’t given the go-ahead yet?”

“The Shrike did mention these men being purchased…” Symmetra’s thoughtful mutter gave way to a light laugh. “Although whether their suggestion is evidence for or  _ against _ that fact, I do not know!”

Pharah couldn’t help but chuckle at that, nudging the Architech gently with her elbow. “So you didn’t exactly trust them either, huh?”

Symmetra scoffed lightly. “What is there to trust? They have done and provided nothing that is evidential. They say they removed a turret, but any one of a dozen factors could have been the source of that - running out of ammunition, encountering a mechanical failure, repositioning for a better angle or because they were ordered to, even fleeing a hopeless situation. We had a  _ tank _ , after all.”

She shook her head, her dark hair bound back to keep it out of the way. “They said that this was an Omnium, and perhaps it is - would you recognize one upon seeing it?” She glanced over toward Pharah with a raised eyebrow, and chuckled at the shrug she received. “Precisely. Neither would I. This Shrike has posed many possible truths, and not a single one is backed up by self-evident fact, save for the fact that they have not yet been openly hostile to us. I trust what deserves my trust.”

Pharah nodded, but there was something tugging at her gut. Yes, the Shrike had been… well, pretty much an asshole, the whole time, actually. Moreso as the night went on, it seemed - but it hadn’t necessarily started out that way.

“They  _ did _ warn me about a grenade,” Pharah whispered in defence of the absent bounty hunter.

For a second, Symmetra didn’t respond. She considered the point silently, but even it was not so solid as it might at first appear.  _ “Someone _ warned you about a grenade,” she pointed out, “and the Shrike took credit for it. We have no true proof there.”

Below her visor in the dim light, Pharah’s lips tugged into a frown. It was possible. Truth be told, the Shrike hadn’t even been the first one to mention it, she was pretty sure - she herself had mentioned the warning and the Shrike had simply gone along with it.

That voice had sounded quite concerned, though.

“The warning came in Arabic,” Pharah murmured almost thoughtlessly. The language was so comfortable to her it hardly registered as a worthwhile thing to mention, at first - hardly lodged in her mind as being different. “I doubt many of the people around here speak that. We’re a few thousand miles and a couple dozen countries removed from anywhere it’s spoken.”

“And this Shrike would know it?”

Pharah shrugged. “International bounty hunter, possibly only one of several. They’ve been known to operate in Egypt, and the area, so it would be a pretty good bet to think they speak it, yes.”

Symmetra stepped silently down the hallway, her gold eyes fixed ahead, searching through her blue barrier for any threats to jump out. Pharah followed behind her now, instinctively protecting against threats from the rear.

“It is still not proof. All we can  _ prove _ , truthfully, is that the Shrike did not approach us with open hostility.” Symmetra laughed softly and then flashed a smirk over her shoulder. “Or should I say, did not approach  _ me _ with open hostility. You, they seemed quite critical of.”

Pharah groaned softly. “Ugh, thanks for reminding me. What exactly was their problem with me, anyway? You’d think I’d done something to personally tick them off, but I don’t remember pissing in anybody’s porridge this morning.”

“How evocative,” Symmetra muttered as her stomach squirmed a little bit.

“So you don’t think this is an Omnium?” Pharah cautiously eyed a door as they stepped past it. It didn’t move.

Symmetra hummed slightly. “I did not say that. I only said that I would not take the Shrike’s word as proof of the fact. Regardless, however, this facility is most certainly something we do not want these soldiers to possess.”

Pharah couldn’t argue with that. Or rather, she could have - she  _ could _ argue with just about anything - but she didn’t want to. Primarily because she agreed, and also because she just didn’t want to really argue with Symmetra.

Not in anything more than a jovial sense, at least.

Up ahead the hallway had once ended in a door. Without power, it had been forced halfway open - bright marks on the metal spoke of a crowbar that had been wedged into the sliding portions and used to lever them back. Symmetra stepped through easily, but the bomb bumped into the not-fully-retracted sections of the door.

“Great.” Pharah shook her head and clambered awkwardly over the sphere. “Give me a minute.”

In theory, Symmetra could have helped, but there wasn’t much room for it. She also didn’t have several of Pharah’s advantages - her armour and her musculature as well. The soldier heaved her shoulder into the door, shoving it back another half-inch and keeping her mouth shut so she didn’t make too much noise.

It mostly worked, but the sound of a three-hundred-pound armoured soldier slamming into a non-functioning pneumatic door wasn’t exactly  _ silent _ to start with. A noise from down this perpendicular hallway drew Symmetra’s eyes, and she turned to hiss softly to Pharah. “Quickly, I believe we can expect company shortly.”

“I hate company when I’m-” Pharah rammed the door again with a muffled grunt, “-unprepared. Makes me feel like a-” another shove “-bad hostess!” Another sharp nudge pushed the door open enough that the bomb could slip past. Symmetra immediately shoved it back, though, and Pharah as well, as she jumped into the hall they’d come from.

She pressed a finger against Pharah’s lips to silence her, then smirked slightly and replaced the finger with a brief kiss as the idea to do so struck her. A soft rhythmic noise soon resolved into jogging footfalls - more than one set - and Symmetra leaned back. Pharah nodded knowingly and gestured, Symmetra smiled and nodded in agreement.

The soldiers - four of them, who had been sent to inspect the noise - slowed as they drew closer to the entry hall where it branched off from the one they were in. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary here. One of them keyed his radio, reporting back to the room they’d come from.

_ “First signs, good. Inspecting further.” _

Pharah didn’t know the language. However, she did know the sound of soldiers who had resolved their concern and were headed back to base or barracks - and this, was not that sound. This was the expectant silence of soldiers who were still looking.

She waited tensely for them to draw a little bit closer…

The soldiers stepped silently, carefully placing their feet softly on the floor. Their rifles - safeties off - were held at the ready, fingers on triggers. They were so very prepared for conflict that when they rounded the corner, one of them even managed to get a shot off.

As blue beams lashed out from a half-dozen spheres dotted around the opening to the hallway, one of the soldiers was so prepared for a fight that his trigger-finger spasmed on the rifle and sent a burst of bullets into Symmetra’s shield. Not that it did anything, and a few seconds later he - and the other three, as well - were all slumped to the ground.

Pharah shook her head with a soft chuckle as she looked in wonder at the technology. They could make such a difference in the right hands - although, she had to admit that Symmetra had a point. They could make quite a difference for the worse, in the  _ wrong _ hands, so maybe it really was for the best that Vishkar kept it close to the chest.

Maybe.

Symmetra turned to find Pharah staring at her with a wide grin, and she smirked in return. As the soldier leaned close, Symmetra tensed up slightly and stretched, but was astounded when Pharah leaned right over her shoulder to kiss one of the  _ turrets _ (Agni) on the dome.

“I think I’m in love,” Pharah murmured, and laughed briefly as Symmetra punched her in the shoulder. She dropped her grinning lips to press them momentarily the Architech’s pout. “And you’re pretty good too, I guess.”

Symmetra’s nostrils flared as she exhaled heavily. “I suppose it is better to be under-recognized than not recognized at all.”

“That’s the spirit!” Pharah chuckled and poked her head around the corner. “Clear. Now, which way do we go?”

“Hmm.” Symmetra looked to the left. “The direction that the soldiers came from, surely populated by  _ more _ of the same…” her head twisted around to face the other way, “or, the empty direction?” She glanced back to Pharah with a wry smile. “Why, the decision is so difficult.”

Pharah nodded. “So you were thinking toward the soldiers, too, right?”

“Naturally.” Symmetra nodded with a laugh and stepped in that direction, holding a shield aloft. Presumably these men knew what they valued down here, and whatever that was, they would be near it. Whatever that was, she wanted to deprive them of it. The surest way forward was toward resistance.

Chuckling softly, Pharah followed her down the hallway. The bomb floated between them, seeming to follow naturally at Symmetra’s heel, and Pharah had one hand gently on the dolly loaded with the excess plutonium and pushed it along as well.

There were shouts from down the hallway, which wasn’t surprising. Guards didn’t just drop out of radio contact without raising a few eyebrows or alarms - plus, there had been gunshots. As she heard people shuffling into position and shouting back and forth, Pharah cleared her throat. “One chance! Surrender!” Pharah shouted.

They didn’t listen. They might not even have understood - she’d been lucky to speak a language in common with the one they’d grabbed earlier. These ones talked back and forth in tongues she couldn’t decipher.

She understood the bullets plenty well, though, and just sighed as they flashed pointlessly against Symmetra’s shield.

“Crouch down, would you?” Pharah raised an eyebrow and her arm, and as Symmetra knelt out of the way, she launched off a concussive rocket that streaked down the length of the hallway. Its burst caused quite a noise which was followed by yells and coughing.

“Alright.  _ Another _ one chance,” Pharah grinned. “Surrender!”

They still didn’t listen. The gunfire continued, and then a grenade which filled the hall with smoke and dust.

Symmetra coughed and wrinkled her nose. This wasn’t likely to resolve in anything. With a sigh, she stood and walked forward. Projectiles of all sort splashed ineffectively against her barrier, and she started to incapacitate soldiers with her photon projector, one at a time, quite calmly.

They were anything except calm, of course - they panicked and shot faster and scrambled back. One leapt at her and swung a fist which she dodged, driving an elbow into his gut instead. The instant he doubled over, Pharah was bringing a fist down against the back of his neck and sending him crumpling to the ground.

She leapt forward then, into the room behind a shield which drifted. Three soldiers had upended a table and crouched behind it, firing - a rocket sent the table flying backward and slammed the three of them heavily against the wall where they fell limply to the floor.

Her muscles spasmed as she heard a crackling noise. A ragged groan slipped between her teeth as she fought her body trying to fall to its knees - some kind of electrical weapon, it seemed.

Her muscles felt like molten lead - heavy and hot and painful, and moving in all the wrong ways, but she forced them to comply and turned herself around. A man there held something bright and sparking, sending out lashes of electricity, and he looked absolutely terrified.

_ Good. _ Pharah let out a shout as she leapt at him, unable to trigger her jets due to the electrical interference - but she didn’t need them anyway. She flung him bodily backwards, and as he scrambled and tried to grab at the weapon again, she kicked it away across the floor and snapped her foot back around into his gut.

Symmetra had her own problems to deal with, in the form of one soldier who had realized the barrier only stopped  _ projectiles _ , not melee attacks. He stabbed with his rifle, a bayonet affixed to its tip and seeking Symmetra’s skin.

She was fast, however. Fast and lithe and practiced in her movements; she dodged left as he stabbed, and then right, and then danced backward as he swung across and she affixed him with the beam. He got out one more groggy and desperate stab, but the momentum of it took him off of his feet to slump forward along the floor.

Unfortunately, another pair had noticed his tactic and decided on the same. They didn’t have bayonets - one had a knife, and the other simply hefted a large chunk of  _ something _ metal. It looked like it could have been a leg.

As it swung within inches of her face, Symmetra’s eyes widened. It  _ was _ a leg.  _ Interesting. _ She ducked under its next swing, but then was forced to leap backward as the man with the knife pressed the attack. She activated the projector, but had to release the beam when the leg sought out her midriff and she spun away.

The tail of her outfit swirled delightfully around her legs as she spun, leapt and pushed off of one of the walls land in a wide crouch on the floor. She twirled and charged up an orb of energy, flinging it at one of them men as a distraction.

It worked, and gave her plenty of time to have the other one incapacitated. Before she could return her attention to the first, Pharah was upon him, kneeling on his neck.

“I always have loved dancing,” Symmetra admitted, breathing somewhat heavily as she pulsed the beam on the man to ensure his unconsciousness. She went around doing the same to all of the others, just in case.

“Well, I like the way you do it,” Pharah chuckled. “Never been much of a dancer, myself, but I do think I know a few of the steps to this tune.”

“Mmm, you certainly seem to.” Symmetra picked up the fallen leg curiously. “Quite practiced indeed, yes…”

Pharah couldn’t see what she was looking at, but she heard the obvious distance in the Architech’s voice, the distraction. “What’ve you got over there?” She stepped closer and tried to peek over Symmetra’s shoulder.

“Hmm?” Symmetra blinked, shaking herself from her confusion. “Oh, it- one of the soldiers was using it as a weapon. A metal leg, it seems. Interesting.”

With a hum, Pharah shrugged. She didn’t know what else to make of it, but she knew one thing: there was only one other door in this room. Maybe they’d just been using it as a guard post, but it still seemed worth checking out.

Control consoles of some sort covered every wall, the screens black and lights un-lit. The whole place was illuminated somewhat eerily by a string of lights nailed to the ceiling and a pair of lanterns set on a small table they’d set up. A battery-powered hotplate held a plate of sizzling meat.

It looked like any impromptu guard shack Pharah had ever seen, and she’d seen many. It wasn’t an uncommon sort of surreal sensation for any soldier, to wander through an enemy encampment and notice that it was just like your own. That they were just like you were. Same soldier, different flag.

This time, though, at least she wasn’t thinking back on their blood and bullet-holes and blank eyes.

“Thank you.” She cleared her throat a little and shot Symmetra a glance.

The Architech looked away from the console she was inspecting, with a soft frown. “For what?”

With a chuckle, Pharah looked away to the walls. They weren’t just walls as she’d first presumed - closer up, she could tell that they were windows which had shutters covering the far side and blocking off any view. “For…” she sighed and stepped toward the door on that side of the room. “It’s a long story. Just... thanks.”

It didn’t take much consideration for Symmetra to shrug and follow her angel. “Very well, that is fair, I suppose. You are welcome, in any case.”

Pharah nodded. She’d heard her mother arguing, years ago - with Reinhardt, with Jack, with Gabriel, behind closed doors or around corners where she thought young Fareeha couldn’t hear. She hadn’t wanted her daughter going into the army, hadn’t even wanted her thinking or hearing about it.

She wondered whether Ana realized how clear the weight she carried was. How much young Fareeha saw it, even if Ana didn’t talk about it. With a deep pit of slick guilt, she wondered whether maybe -  _ maybe -  _ if Ana had been more open about it, more clear about it, Fareeha might not have gone off to war. Maybe if her mother had sat her down and laid out the weight and told her about it…

It felt too much like blame and she shut off the thoughts. They were only painful, anyway, and pointless - it was in the past. Her mother had done what she’d thought was best for her daughter, Fareeha believed that to the depths of her being.

It felt disrespectful to the dead to think that she might  _ disagree _ about what would have been best.

So, she didn’t let herself think about it for long. She fell silent as she stepped to the door and drew her head in close to it. No sound could be heard through it, but that didn’t necessarily prove much.

Pharah glanced up to catch Symmetra’s eyes with a nod which was returned as the woman readied her photon projector. Pharah herself gripped at her launcher a little tighter and opened the latch, pushing the door gently open with a shoulder.

Despite its age, it swung squeaklessly and silently, smoothly on hinges that hadn’t rusted in the slightest over the years. Pharah stepped over the raised threshold and looked out into darkness. The light coming through the door stretched twenty feet or so, dimming as it went, and failed to illuminate anything except flat floor in its spread.

“You know how to conjure a light?” Pharah murmured, her eyes searching pointlessly up in the darkness. She thought she could see hints of something up there, shapes - but then they moved and repositioned and they were something else. Trees one second and cliffs the next, and then interlaced fingers; the fanciful inventions of a mind present with a perfectly blank, dark canvas.

“No,” Symmetra responded with a weary sigh. “I do not know how to  _ conjure _ anything, I am no sorceress, I am an engineer.”

“Then you know how to  _ engineer _ a light?” Pharah murmured, smirking widely.

Symmetra paused for a moment, eyes narrowed at the back of the soldier’s helmet. She thought she might recognize that tone. “Are you smirking?”

“Bet your ass I am,” she responded easily before turning to face the gesture back at the Architech, and at the light. “Now…”

Symmetra cleared her throat, smiling at her own accomplishment - success always felt good, and doubly so when it was one so problematically uncommon. “Yes, of course. Light.” She focused on her hands at first instead of the warmth in her cheeks, or the tension from her smile - but not  _ exclusively _ . The light of her happiness contributed to her design. All artists include themselves in their work; some were simply more literal about it than others.

Pharah looked sharply away as a bright orb came into existence in Symmetra’s hands.  _ Yeah, sure, definitely not conjuring. _ She shook her head with a soft chuckle as the orb floated up and hovered, gradually increasing in intensity and illuminating the room.

It was huge: thirty feet tall, at least, and large enough in length and width that she couldn’t really see the walls even with the orb’s light. The floor was illuminated maybe eighty feet away but still there was no sign of walls.

She might have thought it was a warehouse or maybe an aircraft hangar, had it been more empty - or maybe full of shelves, or aircraft for that matter. It  _ was _ filled, but not with either of those. Instead, rather, there were massive indecipherable but clearly recognizable machines: huge mechanical arms above an assembly line, massive devices with bits that would dance and turn and twist if there was electricity flowing. They spanned the space in every direction, stretching from floor to ceiling and from darkness to shadow on either side.

“Well,” Pharah nodded appreciatively, setting a hand on her hip. “I think I can now safely say that I  _ would _ recognize an Omnium if I saw it.”

“So it would seem,” Symmetra muttered softly in awe. Her eyes searched out every detail of the machinery; it was beautiful, like clockwork in its intricacy yet tremendous in scale. She wanted to see them in motion.

Perhaps, one day, she would be able to visit one of the reclaimed sites. There were Omnics being produced yet, after all - they were simply doing so in safe circumstance. This facility, however, was far from safe circumstance.

“Found where your leg came from.”

Symmetra’s eyes snapped down from the heights they were searching, to find Pharah standing with a grin beside one of the assembly lines. She picked a metal limb up from it - an arm - and used it to wave.

A giggle leapt from Symmetra as she crossed her arms. “You don’t think that’s a little infantile for the current situation?”

“Hey,” Pharah shrugged and tossed the arm gently back onto the conveyer belt,  _ “you _ laughed.”

“I-” Symmetra started to protest, but she couldn’t say anything much against that point. She could argue that it had been a giggle, not a laugh, but even she knew that was a semantic difference unworthy of debate. She frowned slightly. “I did, yes.”

With a chuckle, Pharah stepped over toward her. “Well, I’m glad you did. It’s a nice laugh - now… where do you want to set off this bomb of yours?”

Coldness dropped into Symmetra’s gut as her eyes flashed to the machines again. “The- the bomb, yes. We must… this facility must be destroyed. Yes.”

It seemed like such a waste. Symmetra hated waste. How much  _ good _ could this machinery do, in the  _ right _ hands? What could Vishkar accomplish with a facility like this?

Her eyes widened a little as she realized the folly of her own shortsightedness. It was not only the facility - it was the  _ product _ that should be the focus of her mind. The Omnics.

What could Vishkar do with a fleet of Omnics, custom-built to their specifications - each with their own hard-light generators and photon projectors, capable of ensuring order, of constructing or deconstructing as needed.

With that… Vishkar could finally have their better world.

“Yes,” Pharah murmured, nodding softly. As much as she liked the look of awe in Symmetra’s wide gold eyes, she really  _ didn’t _ like it. It was sweet, it was cute, and it was a little bit terrifying. She felt like the person in a movie just as the mad scientist was deciding to play with life and death. “Yes, it needs to be destroyed.”

_ Destroyed? _ Symmetra’s eyes flashed to Pharah’s, angrily at first. They held a spark of irritation, of ire, of  _ fury _ , but it died down the instant she made eye contact. Those weren’t the eyes of a destroyer, they were those of a protector.

“Yes.” Symmetra cleared her throat, looking away into the darkness again. “It must be destroyed.” Perhaps Vishkar could arrange something with one of the reclaimed facilities. It was an avenue worth pursuing, at the least.

Symmetra cleared her throat slightly, considering the placement of the bomb - whether it would be best to place it here, or back at the crux of the hallways, or elsewhere. “The- wait.” She shook her head, jogging a few steps back toward the door with a frown and looking back through the guard room they’d fought their way through. “No, no it- eighty-five from the entrance and then… then sixty-four until the room, which itself-”

“What are you doing?” Dark lips twisted into a slight, confused frown underneath the golden visor. Symmetra’s light was starting to descend and dim, evidently having used up whatever it had as an internal power source.

“Counting! Calculating! The distance from the entrance to here, and then the size of this room; there was hallway in the other direction as well and-” Symmetra cleared her throat, turning around with a shake of her head. “The facility is of unknown scale, but larger than I had anticipated; this is a formidable explosive, but they are rendered much more effective by their method of deployment - an airburst which increases the destructive force by a factor-”

“Just-” Pharah laid her hands on Symmetra’s shoulders, keeping her from running off on a tangent. “Just focus. Calm down. It’s fine. What does it mean?  _ Simply.” _

Symmetra frowned, not meeting Pharah’s gaze - she was still studying figures and numbers. “It means we may need to make modifications to the bomb, in order to account for the facility’s size and layout. I will need to map the area more specifically to know for sure, but-”

For the first time since her rant began, she met Pharah’s eyes, swallowing heavily. “I apologize. I did not foresee this. I should have been prepared for this eventuality - I became excited about the prospect of success and I…”

Pharah shook her head. “Hey, don’t worry about it. You’ve done about a hundred times as much as I think anybody else could have - whatever you need to map and modify, or whatever, we can do it. We did everything else, right?”

Nodding, Symmetra cleared her throat and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “It- therein lies the issue. I did not foresee this possibility when I sent the amplifier back to Vishkar, and I… am unlikely to possess the power required to modify the device myself. Perhaps we will be lucky, and the facility will not be large enough to require such an eventuality.”

Something settled over Pharah like a wool blanket - metaphorically. Warm, but a little uncomfortable, heavy but soft, an overall pretty equal mixture of positive and negative: the realization of irony. She chuckled and shook her head. “Yeah… I’m betting that’s  _ not _ going to happen because, well, history. But, hey - we can always resort to the well of dumb ideas, because apparently, it overflows tonight.”

Symmetra raised an eyebrow, and Pharah just shrugged and gestured toward the excess plutonium, stacked on the hover dolly.

The soldiers had gathered it to power the facility in the first place. It could always be turned to its intended purpose.

At first, Symmetra didn’t understand. She thought Pharah was suggesting she  _ build _ a nuclear reactor - which she most certainly could have done, had she had the amplifier, but it was  _ gone. _ As she opened her mouth to explain that, she was somewhat blindsided by the realization that struck her.

“No,” was what she said instead of an explanation or an inquiry. “No, you could not possibly be that stupid.”

“Couldn’t I?” Pharah chuckled a sigh. “And hey, call me stupid all you like - but you thought of it too.”

“Only after you planted the idea in my head!” Symmetra protested in a hiss. “And the only problem is that you’re  _ right!” _

Pharah tossed her head back for a laugh that rang out to the ceiling and echoed back as the light Symmetra had made dimmed away entirely. “Oh,  _ trust me _ , that is so not the  _ only _ problem with that plan. But before we get carried away and do stupid thing number seventeen of the night, let’s get your measurements.”

“Yes, yes of course.” Symmetra sighed as her light died away entirely. Her visor measured up the space of the room even in the darkness, however. “This section is mapped. Let us proceed through the remainder of the facility such as we can - I must merely lay eyes on each area.”

“Alright.” With a chuckle, Pharah stepped back toward the door. “I’ve always loved road trips…” her eyes flicked nervously to Symmetra’s. “Do we  _ need  _ to bring the bomb and the plutonium with us?”

Symmetra crossed her arms. “If we wish to not risk them falling into the hands of these soldiers - something I think we most decidedly  _ do _ want - then yes, we do.”

Pharah sighed. “Alright, fine.” She held out a finger accusingly. “But if I grow a third arm or something from radiation, I’m blaming you!” She grinned and stepped over toward the hover-dolly loaded with plutonium. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen, obviously, but it was pretty fun to mess around.

“Radiation does  _ not _ work that way,” Symmetra grumbled as she led the way back through the door, the spherical bomb following close at her heels, shield held aloft and a smirk on her lips. She was reasonably certain that Pharah  _ knew _ radiation didn’t cause such things, but still, it was fun to simply pretend and play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry sorry sorry I missed an update day again, gah! I went to see The New Pornographers - an awesome band from Vancouver - in this tiny little venue, it was really great and really cool! They were fronted by the Born Ruffians who were also really good; they had a pretty hilarious aesthetic disparity in their members and turned out some awesomely complex stuff for only having three people on stage. It was all really awesome! Buuut it also took until one in the morning, so I didn't get a chance to finish stuff up for the update
> 
> I've been working this whole week which hasn't necessarily helped with the fic writing either, heh, sorry - but! I got this done now, and I like it :D It was pretty playful and fun, and I liked the opportunities given to touch back on some things too: namely, Pharah's past and Symmetra's views on the Shrike - and kind of, on the world, as well. Vishkar and Pharah, particularly.
> 
> So! Exciting times, yes? Sorry again for the lateness but I shouldn't have a problem with the next one, unless I get sick suddenly or something like that, heh - thanks folks, you're all great and I hope you're having fun!
> 
> Up next time: Stupid thing number seventeen of the night. Perhaps Pharah's count is worth questioning, but her plans? Well, she rose up the ranks for a reason. Her plans may not be _good_ , per se, but they're _effective_ \- and it's time for them to effect the next one.


	9. Blaze of Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's make or break time. Or perhaps, make _and_ break time. Time to make a map, and then break a whole lot of things. A siege, a silence - but hopefully, not a truce.

It would be incorrect to say that resistance throughout the buried facility was light. However, it would also be incorrect to think that Pharah and Symmetra had much difficulty in dealing with it.

The soldiers were fairly entrenched throughout the hallways and the rooms, impromptu barricades of toppled tables or stacked crates and sandbags - they knew that the facility had been breached, they had at least a rough idea of where the assailants were, and they _thought_ they were ready for them.

Of course, they weren’t.

The soldiers either had no clue about _who_ they were up against, or they’d heard some talk about the former prisoner - who had surrendered after hardly any fight at all and not killed a single soldier - and maybe a few rumours about a flying rocketeer. They knew a tank had been stolen but it had also been blown up.

For the most part, they were more worried about the soldiers who had gone missing entirely, without a sound or an indication.

However, as more and more started to radio in for backup and the hallways rang with the sounds of gunshots, and then silence, they started to worry more about the present threat.

They still didn’t know much. The prisoner had escaped. She was being aided by somebody, or more likely a team of people. Explosives seemed to be involved. Some of their number had spoken of seeing a flying machine or some kind of drone, some kind of suit, involved in the fray, but a lot of the others doubted that.

Or at least, they doubted it right up until they saw her. One or two managed to shout something out over their radio - as a black-and-gold winged figure leapt at them down the hallways or across the rooms, moving with inhuman speed and gushing flames from its back.

They shouted _something_ out over the radio. That’s not to say that it got any real information across. Scattered cries of “it’s true” or “it’s here” didn’t mean much to the rest of them - or rather, not those who doubted. The skeptics remained unconvinced, and the believers, well, they only became more nervous. Fingernails grew shorter as teeth chattered and knuckles gripped whiter and tighter at weapons.

Down the hallways, gunshots continued to sound. They echoed and dulled and intermingled with shouts and thumps.

All the while, the nervousness increased, and in time even the skeptics began to doubt their own convictions…

 

\---

Pharah was having a hell of a lot of fun. She laughed as she triggered her jets, launching herself forward to knock the rifle out of one soldier’s hands and spinning, bringing and armoured foot lashing against another one’s helmeted head.

The pair worked out a quite efficient pattern pretty quickly, a one-two punch which played to both of their strengths. Pharah easily outpaced Symmetra in terms of burst speed, helped along by her jets, so she took the lead: first into a room or a hallway and protected by a hovering shield that bore the brunt of any attacks. She would leap upon them and strike, quite easily incapacitating them in the short term, and it only took a scant few seconds at that point for Symmetra to send them unconscious to the ground.

The Architech smiled at the sound of Pharah’s laugh. It was full and deep, leaping directly from her chest it seemed; it was a pure expression of joy and seemed impossible not to appreciate. Her beam latched onto the soldier whom Pharah had just punched in the head, and she watched as the angel danced away with a spin, crouching and driving the point of her elbow up into another soldier’s gut.

That one hardly needed any assistance to attain unconsciousness, but Symmetra attended to him anyway. This mission was an important one and couldn’t risk their interference.

Pharah tapped her on the shoulder, laughing breathlessly, and leaned back against the wall swinging a hand across her throat. “Let’s- take a break, huh? Ha! Much as I- hate to stop, it’s getting- a little tiring!”

“Oh?” Symmetra raised an eyebrow, a tiny quirk barely curling the corner of her lips. “Done so soon?”

“Just gimme a minute!” Pharah laughed, tugging her helmet off for a second to wipe the sweat from her brow with a grin. Even with the Raptora’s cooling systems - which were an absolute godsend in the Egyptian heat - she was still sweating. The jets took a lot of a load off but she’d been working pretty hard for a while now, and kicking ass wasn’t the least physical thing she’d ever done.

It _was_ one of the most fun, though.

“How are we looking so far?” Pharah leaned back and closed her eyes for a second, sucking in deep and steady lungfuls of breath. It made her a little bit lightheaded, but she knew from experience that it would help her fatigue resolve a lot faster. “Wish I’d brought some water.”

“We are looking - or at least, _should_ be looking - somewhat worried at this point,” Symmetra muttered as she ran some calculations on her visor. The systems were designed to map out the space around her, to aid in design and actualization: measuring a room or hallway was as simple as looking at it. Unfortunately, this simplicity did mean that there wasn’t much wiggle-room in her figures, which she normally liked, but given that the figures were pointing in _bad_ directions, it was a little bit less comfortable.

“Here.” She nudged Pharah’s elbow and held out a glass full of water. “Drink.”

Pharah had the glass in hand and was tipping it back before she really thought about it. It was good water, too, and she took it in a single gulp before handing the glass back. “Thanks. Where’d that come from?”

“From light, into being,” Symmetra offered as explanation, looking at Pharah curiously. Despite her occasional impulsiveness, she did seem generally quite collected and well-prepared. Capable, certainly. “Why did you not bring any water with you?”

Pharah grinned, chuckling. “Same reason I didn’t bring a tent or food. Didn’t think it would be a long mission - supposed to be in, grab you, out again.” She lowered her head from the wall, opening her eyes and meeting Symmetra’s with a wide grin. “Except _somebody_ convinced me there were more important things to do, remember?”

Symmetra laughed softly as she stepped to set the glass down on the edge of a table. “I seem to recall something of the sort, yes. Some person of greater knowledge educating you, yes, that does sound quite familiar.”

Pharah snickered as she pushed herself off of the wall, her breathing a lot closer to normal now. Her heart still raced, but she wanted to keep it that way. “Well, lucky for me. Not every day I get to meet somebody so smart.” She waited for just a second, until Symmetra’s mouth was open for a response. “And cute.”

Symmetra spluttered momentarily, and Pharah laughed. “Perfect! Just what I was hoping for - now, come on, we’ve got hopefully very little of the facility left to map out.”

“Yes, hopefully,” Symmetra cleared her throat and shook her head. “However, I fear that may not be the case…”

 

\---

 

It wasn’t the case. Ten minutes later, they were still making their way through rooms and hallways. They crisscrossed back and forth, and spanned several levels - Symmetra always seemed to know whether they had already been in a particular hallway, though, or room.

It was quite impressive to Pharah. She’d always been high up the charts in orienteering, and her physical compass was usually as steady as her moral one, but down in this rabbit’s warren of tunnels even she was getting turned around.

“This is quite vexing,” Symmetra sighed as she nudged an unconscious soldier out of the way of a closed door. She’d manufactured a short pry-bar to ease the doors back - luckily, many of them were into rooms which had no other access, or which opened only onto known hallways or rooms. They only needed to pry the doors wide enough for her to look through. “This one abuts the cafeteria, it would seem,” she muttered as the map on her visor updated itself - as too did the numbers adjacent which informed her (helpfully but unpleasantly) of the facility’s total dimensions.

With a weary sigh, Symmetra pulled her head back out of the room. “We will most certainly need to alter the bomb - erring on the side of caution, of course. This is a non-standard situation and a non-standard explosive. I would rather the destruction be excessive, than incomplete.”

“Excessive destruction,” Pharah murmured softly, her lips tugging into a grin as the syllables rolled out of her lips. “That sounds like my kind of party.”

“I am unsurprised.” Symmetra sighed, shaking her head briefly with a frown. “I appreciate your attempts to remain jovial, but this is a concerning situation. I miscalculated, and as a result, we will need to awaken this facility - at least partially - and-”

“Look, it’s-” Pharah huffed out a breath in half of a laugh and half of a scoff, laying a hand on Symmetra’s shoulder. “This is… a big, crazy clusterfuck. SNAFU, if you catch my drift - nothing about this night has been normal or expected in the slightest, so, seriously, you can stop dragging yourself through the mud about your calculations, okay?”

Symmetra took a quick breath, intending to rebutt those points, but she stopped the words from leaving her mouth and instead exhaled through her nose. “I will try,” she conceded a few seconds later, “but I make no promises. Failure is… problematic.”

“Fair,” Pharah shrugged, “but you haven’t failed yet. Don’t get so focused on slipping that you forget to hold on.”

Slowly, softly, Symmetra nodded. Her eyes remained trained on the middle distance, largely unseeing and looking emptily ahead. “I will try.”

“All we can do.” Pharah smiled and gave her a little kiss on the forehead. She could still remember standing on the Confidence Course, at the base of a forty-foot-tall net which then stretched out over a chasm. The instructor told her she couldn’t possibly slip between the holes, but fear still held her on the ground until one of the other recruits had come by and whispered that in her ear. _Don’t get so focused on slipping that you forget to hold on._

It was an important message. Keep your eyes on success, not on failure - see what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid.

“Any ideas for the best place to set this thing off?” Pharah nudged the bomb. It bobbed slightly on its repulsion field, but it was almost impossible to tell given its perfectly spherical shape.

“Some, but any plan is inconclusive until we have a better representative view of the facility.” Symmetra shook her head, and shook herself from her momentary melancholy. “We must press on. There is nothing else for it - we must simply work as well as we can within our bounds. It will be what it is.”

Pharah frowned, stepping in front of Symmetra as she made to move into the hallway. “Hold up.” Symmetra’s gaze flicked to her in some annoyance, and Pharah crossed her arms. “What’s up? Something’s going on. You’re more prickly than normal, and that’s saying something.”

She may not have known Symmetra for particularly long, but she was usually pretty quick to get a notion of a person. It didn’t take her long to figure out what was truth and what was a lie, what was a face put on for the world.

With a frown, Symmetra considered protesting and denying it, but there was nothing else for it. She knew when she was caught - she couldn’t see the thoughts of others on their faces, but everyone seemed to know her own as simply as looking at her. “Very well. I am bothered, yes, by more than simply this possible problem.”

Rather than speaking to her issues, though, she dropped her gaze off and to the side, looking at the unconscious soldier nearby. Looking at him, she found she couldn’t really speak - no words seemed to be right.

They were wrong, these soldiers. That did simply happen, however, and now they were going to be denied any chance ever to be _right_ again. Their wrongness would be the last thing they did, by virtue of their location - they were in the facility, the facility was to be destroyed, they were unconscious. There was nothing else for it. They were wrong, they had been wrong, and now they were going to die for it without a chance to redeem themselves.

She had been wrong. Often, in the past, and even now. Wrongness did not condemn one.

Yet, she did condemn them here. Every one incapacitated was one murdered.

Symmetra didn’t like killing. She was not a stranger to death, certainly, but perhaps that was _why._ She wondered whether Sanjay had seen death, closely, the way she had. She wondered if it mattered whether he had.

She didn’t like killing, but it was only fooling herself to think that knocking these men out was any different from killing them. Every one she’d rendered unconscious was one she’d killed. Their hearts simply hadn’t stopped beating quite yet - but they were very dead.

“Hey.” Pharah’s voice pulled her out of dark and cyclical thoughts, and she looked over to see a retracted golden visor overtop of soft brown eyes and gently smiling dark lips. “You’re doing a good thing here.”

“For the greater good,” Symmetra whispered in response, almost mechanically.

It worried Pharah, more than a little bit, and her lips twisted into a frown as her gut just plain twisted. She couldn’t deny it, though. It _was_ the point she’d been trying to make. “Yeah,” she nodded softly, “it _is_ for the greater good. Loss of life is lamentable, but - look, if it wasn’t you…”

She let out a slow sigh. She could say that _somebody_ would have killed them, but that didn’t really have a lot of impact. It felt like a platitude even before she said it.

“If it wasn’t you,” she murmured quietly, “it would be me.”

Symmetra focused in on her at that, frowning and meeting her eyes.

“I’m…” Pharah chuckled, shaking her head briefly. “I’m not a retrievals agent, Symmetra. Not my specialty. My team and I? Our specialty? Destruction and death, and we’re damn good at it. I tried, tonight, to keep it to a minimum - in the interest of stealth, at first - but without you? So many of them up top would be dead. I’m simply not outfitted to deal with the situation differently.”

Phrased that way, it was undeniable to Symmetra. _Simply not outfitted._ She couldn’t say she disagreed, she’d seen no evidence to back up such a thing, and she wouldn’t dream of it anyway. To expect a person to do what they could not was only including yourself in their inevitable failure.

Symmetra studied Pharah’s dark eyes, but eyes never told her much. People were inscrutable that way. At least, though, they were pleasant to look into. “Do you believe in fate, Pharah?”

Being far from what she expected to hear, the question shook Pharah a little. Not enough to cause any problems, but just enough to shift her expression a bit toward confusion. “I… that’s a big question. Generally, though… yes, I would say I do.”

Maybe it was just a way of pawning off responsibility. Captain Khalil might not weigh so heavily on her conscience, if he had been _destined_ to die. Maybe it wasn’t her fault, if it was fate. There was comfort in taking orders, as well - in having SOPs to follow, things laid out simply. Maybe she believed in fate because she wanted to.

At the same time, she didn’t like the idea of her actions being pointless, her hands being tied in a world that was pre-decided.

Symmetra didn’t decipher the uncertainty that played subtly across Pharah’s face at the question, but she had plenty of her own. It was a question that had plagued her: free will and fate. Trying to rectify knowledge with desire, or knowledge with knowledge - she didn’t know what, exactly, her conflict was, but she knew it was there.

“The Universe has its order,” she murmured, thinking aloud as much as she was really trying to convey information to Pharah. “Destiny is a powerful force. Ultimate, but perhaps not immalleable: it can be shifted, but not denied outright. Fate does not indemnify us of our actions, nor remove our responsibility _to_ act. I was destined for the place I have attained, but I could not have sat back and simply let it happen - but… were my actions to lead here, then, the result of that destiny? Or were they my own?”

Did it matter? She had done a million things over the years and a million had been done to her, a thousand million actions she’d seen throughout her time on this Earth. Some tried to hide behind Destiny, to pretend as if they had no choice in the matter and that somehow put them beyond reproach. She refused that line of logic. Even if actions were predestined specifically, they still had consequences. Even Destiny could not separate cause from effect.

What did that mean, then, for the lives of these soldiers? Life was quite simple: people reaped what they sowed. These men, in sowing destruction and hate and chaos, were sure to find themselves with a harvest of the same - yet, what did that mean for _her?_ She was now the implement of fate’s vengeance, doling out destruction and death of her own.

Would she reap the same in turn? Would it be more against the order of the Universe for her to hope to avoid the consequences of her actions here, or to try to avoid the actions in the first place?

Sometimes, she envied Sanjay his ability to be so steadfast in his determination. It truly was an admirable trait of his. Sometimes.

Other times she found her insides churning as she worried over what it might mean. The concept of acceptable chaos in the name of order… how could that ever coalesce? How could chaotic acts lead to an ordered world, or bad acts lead to a good one?

They couldn’t.

...but they couldn’t _not._ They were working for a better world. Their actions were devoted to that purpose, ergo they must be steps along that path. Ergo, bad acts were leading to a good world.

Pharah didn’t know what to say about it, but it was clear to her that Symmetra was having a tough time. It wasn’t exactly anything new to her - it seemed to her to be pretty similar to something a lot of rookies went through. Before they first killed, or maybe just afterward. They didn’t talk about fate, usually, they made it about orders, but it still sounded similar.

“Any soldier… has a responsibility. We’re to follow orders, yes, but there’s something that overrides that.” Pharah took Symmetra’s hand in hers, a way of getting her attention and holding it, and hopefully providing whatever security she needed to get over this issue. They needed to keep moving. Symmetra needed motivation to see the mission through.

“There is a greater duty to do what is _right._ To stand back if the orders are unjust. These soldiers had that duty, and they denied it - they let the situation carry on, they bore the weight of it one their shoulders, and now it will take them down.” Pharah shook her head. “They signed their names to this fate, you didn’t do it for them.”

“But I could do more,” Symmetra whispered, gold eyes glistening with tears. “I could do more to save them.”

A moment of silence stretched on.

“Could you?” Pharah sighed through her nose. She immediately regretted it - the words seemed to cause Symmetra’s face to twist in pain, and Pharah tugged her in gently, wrapping arms around her. “Maybe you could. I believe… that there’s very little you _can’t_ do, Symmetra. You’re perhaps the most capable person I’ve met, but there are always limits in the real world. It’s frustrating and it sucks, but it’s true.”

 _In the real world._ Symmetra nodded wordlessly against Pharah’s shoulder, safe in her angel’s embrace yet again. “In the real world,” she repeated softly, sighing. Imagination had no limits. Reality, that had it limits, sad as it was. “Yes. It is frustrating. Thank you, for believing in me.”

Pharah chuckled warmly. “I may be an idiot, but I’m not _that_ much of an idiot.” Symmetra laughed lightly against her shoulder, and it felt better. “You going to be alright?”

“Always,” Symmetra sighed wearily. “I will always be alright.”

The radio on the unconscious soldier crackled into life. Pharah and Symmetra both looked that way, instantly, as frantic words came through it. A few seconds later, the line cut out.

“...did you understand any of that?” Pharah looked back to Symmetra, in time to see her shake her head.

“I did not. These men seem to be from no one nation, and speak many dialects. I caught a word or two - I believe it was a movement order, but where to and for whom, I could not say.” Symmetra frowned as Pharah walked toward the radio. “What are you doing?”

“Everything we can,” she muttered in response, tugging the radio free and thumbing the button on the side. She cleared her throat and spoke into it. “Enemy combatants. Evacuate. Flee, and you may survive.” She repeated the message in every language she knew - Arabic, Farsi, muddy French, and very poor Italian.

Then, she dropped the radio on the floor and turned back to Symmetra. “Let’s carry on.”

 

\---

 

The call went out. The soldiers retreated to the armoury - their supplies of weaponry were practically limitless there, and it was a large space. They knew they could not be picked off in small groups of two or three.

The call was followed by another, not one of their voices speaking but a different one. It was dark and husky, and deeply terrifying to those who were inclined to be terrified. Some of them caught fragments of the message, repeated several times: flee. Flee for your lives.

Four dozen of them gathered in the armoury. There were panicked tales of explosions and angry winged beasts, a ghost who glowed and floated through the halls and killed at the touch. Those tales were discounted by those with more level heads. They were safe here, they determined - and were quite determined when they said so, as well. They were safe here and they would destroy whatever stepped through the door.

There was only one door. They left it open, and trained every weapon upon it - lanterns and stringlights lay on the floor and surrounding the entrance to give every chance of early detection.

They would survive here. There would be no fleeing - that was the commander’s decree. One man tried to run and was summarily gunned down, and his body left on the floor.

There would be no fleeing. They would stand. They would fight. They would prevail.

 

\---

 

They found the generators, but Symmetra insisted they couldn’t finish yet. They could not risk the chance that the facility had unplumbed depths which might survive the devastation.

The pair pressed onward. More rooms, more hallways. Fewer soldiers. None, now, in fact - none for a few minutes now.

Pharah squinted as they followed along the hallway. They’d heard noises of boots, muffled words being exchanged, but nothing since that radio call. The radio she’d taken, clipped now at her belt, had been silent ever since.

Now, the halls were silent. She didn’t like it. Silence always felt threatening. Ten minutes now and no sounds.

Ten minutes, no sounds, and this hallway looked odd.

Slowly, she extended a hand to the side and held her arm in front of Symmetra. The bomb bobbed behind them and Pharah let go of the hover-dolly to gesture with her hand - pointing fingers at her eyes, then forward down the hall.

There was a bright gleam down there, brighter than anything they’d seen in these powerless hallways.

Symmetra frowned, tapping at her visor and gesturing forward - they needed to continue, they needed to have an exhaustive picture of the location.

Pharah frowned in return. She danced her fingers along her palm, a mimicry of walking before her other hand snapped closed, snatching the walking fingers tight - a trap.

Symmetra nodded thoughtfully, then brushed a hand against the bomb’s shell. When she took a step forward, it held still. Symmetra raised her arm, holding a shield and linking her elbow with Pharah’s. The soldier raised her eyebrow and Symmetra smiled, reaching back to tap at her jets.

Pharah grinned. _Good plan. Well…_ her eyes flicked to the angry red warning symbols flashing on the side of her HUD. _Not a bad plan, at least. Probably. Anderson’s going to kill me… but at least the soldiers won’t._

They walked forward in tandem, more cautiously than they had before. The gleam resolved into a definite brightness, a pool of light which defined the end of the corridor entirely - there was no door visible, nor anything past the end of it. The hallway seemed to dead-end in light.

Symmetra stopped them, waiting for several seconds before she began to work. A simple sphere, that was all she made - it took no concentration, and was about the size of an orange. She hefted it momentarily before taking half a pace, whirling and bowling it overhead like a cricket ball down the hallway.

It whistled silently through the air and clunked against the ground. There was a shout when it made a noise, then others - it rolled down the hallway and disappeared into the light.

There was a lot of gunfire. Many bullets streaked the length of the hallway and splashed against Symmetra’s shield, but a few seconds later they stopped and after a moment of brief shouting, there was silence again.

Pharah slowly turned to face Symmetra, raising her eyebrows in unison. Symmetra shrugged and glanced briefly back toward the light, and tapped her visor again, then her wrist where one might wear a watch. She raised a two fingers and mouthed, _two seconds._

Slowly, Pharah shook her head, but she grinned as she did. Symmetra nodded just as slowly, raising her eyebrows, and Phara rolled her eyes and conceded by tipping her chin. Symmetra tugged at her elbow, urging them along, and Pharah grinned and held herself back from chuckling.

She also readied herself to pop on the jets. The shields were good, but still, no point being stupid.

The light grew brighter and brighter as they approached. There was a shout and then the gunfire began, and Symmetra and Pharah began to run forward. They crouched behind the shield, running through the almost blinding light - Pharah saw dozens of strings of lights and lanterns and flashlights, all scattered around the doorway.

The room was huge, whatever it was, but looked like just storage. It was hard to tell between the blindingly bright artificial light, and the almost catastrophic amount of gunfire.

Symmetra shouted something but Pharah could barely even hear her voice over the sound of guns. She was nodding, though, and pointing back down the hallway - Pharah didn’t wait another second, she hit her jets and launched them back and out of the room.

The gunfire didn’t cease immediately, but it trailed off over the course of ten or fifteen seconds, until it was replaced by a ragged and hopeful cheer.

 

\---

 

The cheer went around. Whoever they had been, those two people, they had surely been vanquished. However… there were no bodies.

The commander called it off, stopped anybody from going into the hallway to check further. No blood. No bodies.

They weren’t done yet, and he wouldn’t take any risks. They would stay _right_ here until they got a message from topside - reinforcements were being fetched. Their group would hold out here, and they would destroy anything that came through that door.

The men were happier, though. Bolstered by what was surely a victory - even if they’d not killed their assailants, they had driven them _back_. They chuckled to each other, and swapped snacks of canteens. A few began to quietly play cards by the light of their flashlights.

They kept their rifles close to hand, however, loaded and unlocked. Ready to fire the moment that somebody else came through the door.

 

\---

 

“Wow,” Pharah muttered, shaking her head and looking back toward the light at the end of the tunnel. “I think they really want to kill us.”

“Hmm, I think it’s you.” Symmetra smirked as the angel glanced over. “They didn’t want to kill me until _you_ arrived - me, they only wished to capture and torture.”

“Ahhh, yeah that sounds _so much_ better,” Pharah responded wryly with a chuckle. “So… that room’s mapped?”

“Yes.” Symmetra sighed swiftly. “Thankfully, there were no other exits or entrances apparent. That means-”

 _“That_ means,” Pharah interjected hopefully, “that we can finally get to the generators, blow this place, and get out of here?”

Symmetra chuckled, rolling her eyes. “So impatient. _Yes,_ that is what it means. It will take only a few minutes once we get there.”

It only took a few minutes to travel there, as well. They walked in a light-hearted mostly silence - chuckling and grinning but largely tired and grateful that soon, it would be done. Pharah didn’t even think about what “done” might mean - she was only focused on the pot of tea she was going to make. A pot of tea and a long bath, with the good candles, bath salts, a glass of the good bourbon Jesse had sent her.

“I will reactivate the generators.” Symmetra moved immediately to the large banks along the walls of the moderately-sized room. She looked around nervously. “First, though…”

Stepping toward the entrance, she erected a series of her turrets there - half a dozen of them, dotted around the door’s periphery. “There.” She sighed, nodding, and grabbed a case of plutonium before she returned to the generator banks.

“Only one case?” Pharah looked around curiously. There seemed to be little else for her to do - the men seemed happy being holed up where they were.

It was not overly a large room, but it was tall - a freight elevator on one side stretched up into distances that Pharah couldn’t probe with the flashlight she’d pulled off an enemy.

Then, the lights came on, all at once. The doors at the top of the elevator were clearly illuminated by red flashing light; machinery whirred and clanked, and an alarm began to sound. Pharah’s gaze dropped quickly to Symmetra, in time to see her plugging a thick cable into her prosthetic arm.

“Now, this is not enough power to reactivate the facility entirely, thankfully.” Symmetra reached out toward the bomb and her hand began to glow. Pharah couldn’t _see_ any modifications being made, but she had no reason to doubt it was happening.

“Does that elevator go all the way to the surface?”

Symmetra glanced that way briefly. Her visor measured the height of the shaft and compared it to known figures. “It would appear to.”

“Excellent. I love an easy extraction.” Pharah grinned and leaned up against the wall behind her. The mission was drawing to an end, and she was damn pleased about it. It had gone well - far better than expected. It was probably a good thing that she’d have a while on her flight back to Helix to calm down - walking in with a grin like this might be a dead giveaway that things had not gone according to plan.

The radio crackled again, and Pharah held it up beside her head. Symmetra’s eyes sought hers, but she could only shake her head and shrug. “No clue.”

“All I heard was a mention of power.” She sighed, letting her eyes slide closed. “It is safe to assume they know where we are, and are coming this way.”

“Then let’s arm this thing, and get out of here,” Pharah chuckled, taking a step closer.

Symmetra didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on the bomb, her arm now lowered and no longer glowing. Without looking, without thinking, she tugged the cable free of it and picked up her photon projector again. “The modifications are complete,” she murmured, shaking her head. “We cannot abandon it so easily. We cannot risk them deactivating or destroying it before it has a chance to detonate - it must be a short timer.”

“Yes, fine, and we’ve got an elevator right to the surface!” Pharah gestured. “Stop delaying and start the countdown.”

Symmetra looked up the shaft, shaking her head still. “No. No, that is insufficient - if those doors are open when the explosive detonates, much of the force will be lost. It must be contained down here. We can not let the timer be long enough to ensure that the doors would be closed - my turrets are formidable, but they will not hold a horde back from the bomb.”

Her breath left her in a slow sigh as she stepped forward and placed her hand upon the smooth white shell. “I, however, shall.”

Pharah’s blood ran a little colder as she swallowed. “You _what?_ You will not. You’re not staying here with it.”

“I-” Symmetra glanced toward her, guiltily. “I- I can erect a shield and run. Once I ensure the explosive is safe, I will be able to-”

“Cut the bullshit, Symmetra,” Pharah hissed. “You know that won’t work. And you’ve known the score the whole time - if only one of us makes it out of here, it’s _not_ going to be me. Now take the elevator. I’ll cover your retreat.”

The Architech’s eyes widened. “What? No, you cannot-”

“This is not up for debate.” Pharah set her visor into place, ready for combat, and trained her rocket launcher down the hallway. “You’re leaving. If the bomb’s so important, if this is the only way, then this is the only way.”

Symmetra shook her head slowly, in a calm sort of horror, then lost the calmness to it entirely. “No!” She shouted, taking a pace and grabbing at Pharah’s shoulder. “To _hell_ with your mission, I don’t-”

“This is _not_ about the fucking mission, Symmetra.” Pharah whirled to face her, tilting her head to look out from underneath the visor and meet her eyes. She frowned heavily, brows drawn in tight. She hadn’t even really known the truth of the words until she’d said them, but she felt it now, looking into those golden eyes.

She didn’t feel afraid. For a long time, she’d know - hoped, maybe - that this was how she would die. Saving others. Protecting others. This, though, she knew in an instant, ran even deeper than that. As she looked back into those gold eyes, wide with fear and glistening in the harsh light, she knew it.

“How am I supposed to leave, knowing you’ll die?” Pharah shook her head softly. “Forget the mission. It’s not about the mission. It’s about me and you. I could save you. You can’t expect me to give up that chance. Now get the hell out of here.”

She turned away, stepped toward the door, set her feet wide. If she was going out, she was going out big. A hard grin set to her lips. Nobody would know… except for perhaps the only person who mattered.

That wasn’t true, though. All of those prisoners - every face which had stared at her, every hand which had sought hers earlier. Every single one of them survived and went free because of her, here tonight.

She couldn’t think of a better way to go.

“You…” Symmetra swallowed, trying to coax her voice into working as her throat tried to close off. She shook her head. “You expect me to capable of that which you are not?”

Slowly, Pharah looked over her shoulder. She expected to see Symmetra looking sad, or maybe afraid - she didn’t, though. She looked _angry._

She was also holding her weapon up, trained on Pharah.

“Don’t do that.” Pharah shook her head. “Please, Symmetra - just leave. Save yourself, okay, just-”

“Shut up!” Symmetra hissed, shaking her head. “Stop giving me _orders!_ Do not tell me to do the thing which you are unable to, and expect me to simply live with the consequences which you yourself admit would be unbearable!”

Her fingers gripped tighter at her rocket launcher, her jaw clenching - now she was angry too, she could feel it burning deep in her gut. Not angry at Symmetra, though. Angry at herself.

...and a little bit at Symmetra, too.

She didn’t like the implication that _she_ was taking the easy way out. She also didn’t like that Symmetra was probably right.

There was a frustrated sigh from the corner, and Pharah whirled to face it. The Shrike stepped out, boots clicking on the floor. “Fine. Both of you idiots get on the elevator. I’ll defend the bomb.”

“What?” Pharah shook her head. “No, no it- I am the only one here who signed up for this, I-”

“Your mother would be _so_ disappointed in you, Fareeha.”

Her heart jerked at the mention and she leapt toward the Shrike, but was stopped by an extended arm - that same promised tranquilizer dart as earlier.

“I knew her, you know. Back in the army. Horus, they called her - the protector. Ha!” The Shrike shook their head. “Some protector she turned out to be.”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about her,” Pharah hissed through her teeth as angry tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Oh, are you angry at me now?” The Shrike chuckled. “You want me dead?”

“Damn straight I do,” Pharah nodded.

“Good. Then get the fuck out of here and let me blow up with this place.”

She froze, feeling a bit like a pawn on a chessboard and she hated it. She hated chess, generally.

“Five seconds before I tranquilize you,” the Shrike hummed, shaking their head. That glowing triangle on their face seemed to stare back mockingly. “You know, nothing’s more disappointing than a daughter who throws her life away.”

Pharah’s fist clenched tighter, but a hand caught it. Symmetra’s hand, and Pharah looked back to see her shaking her head.

“Fine,” Pharah sighed. “Fine. Whoever the fuck you are,” she pointed at the Shrike, stepping backward toward the elevator. “You… are the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I hate you. Thank you.”

The Shrike laughed outright. “Maybe you’re not hopeless after all!” As the elevator started to lift up, alarms blaring and lights flashing, the bounty hunter turned away from the hallway. “I misspoke earlier. _Pharah_ would be a disappointment to your mother, but…” they shook their head slowly. “I don’t think _Fareeha_ would.”

Pharah clutched desperately at the hand in hers. There was nothing else to do about it. She wasn’t even sure she believed the Shrike had ever met her mother - many people knew of Horus. Anybody with a computer could find out.

It hardly mattered.

That was what she told herself, at least. For now. Until she could find the time to deal with it properly.

Instead, she turned and looked up, to focus on the doors. Beside her, Symmetra shouted down. “Wait until these doors are sealed! The button will give you a thirty second count! Every subsequent press will remove ten seconds!”

Pharah took a deep, unsteady breath, as the elevator rose. The doors above, thick steel, rumbled and then cracked, dust falling from the gap.

Not dust.

_Dirt._

Pharah grabbed Symmetra and threw them each back over the railing as a torrent of earth came cascading down. The doors had been covered over at some point, it seemed, and within seconds there was nothing on the platform but earth. The hydraulics pressed, shuddered, and then failed. Another alarm was added into the chorus as Pharah used her jets to slow their descent.

“Well, I think we can call those doors effectively sealed, at least,” she muttered darkly, shaking her head.

Symmetra frowned, stepping forward toward the bomb as the Shrike took a shot at a man who rounded the corner of the hallway again. “I suppose there is nothing else for it, then. It has been a pleasure to serve with you.”

“I’ll be courteous and not ask _which_ of us that applies to,” the Shrike muttered as they took another shot.

Symmetra’s hand stretched out over the bomb, but it was caught by another - armoured in black and gold, and she looked up to see Pharah grinning.

 _“Or,_ ” the soldier chuckled. “How about stupid thing number eighteen of the night?”

Symmetra frowned in incomprehension, shaking her head - there was nothing else to it. They’d tried everything else, valiantly, but to no avail. They could not teleport, there was no platter set up to receive them. They could not fight their way out and also ensure the safety of the bomb. They needed to be here.

“How far is it to the entrance? The main entrance, the shaft.”

It took only a few seconds for Symmetra to calculate the figure, based off of the facility map she had constructed. “Three hundred forty-seven metres, linear.”

“Thirty seconds.” Pharah flickered the jets at her back, flames licking out against the black and gold paint. “I think I can manage it. Even with an Architech and a bitch in my arms.”

“I’ll give you that _one_ , but next time, I shoot you,” the Shrike warned.

Symmetra, however, was thinking. It was a stupid plan. A plan that relied on chaos, on chance - on the men deciding to follow them rather than making a concerted effort to disable or destroy the bomb. “If they get in here-”

“Then we fight our way back in and try again,” Pharah urged. “Come on. Let’s-” she glanced to the Shrike with a grunt. “Let’s try to make my mom happy. Not throw our lives away.”

“Despite earlier indications,” the Shrike let off another shot, “I’d actually rather _not_ die today.”

“Very well.” Symmetra straightened her uniform. “Let us, then, do stupid thing number eighteen of the night.”

“Excellent!” Pharah stepped closer and wrapped one arm around her. “Now, you’ll both excuse me for playing a little music here. After all, I _am_ saving our asses. I think I deserve it.”

“We will determine that after the fact,” Symmetra muttered, “based on what you play and how successful your saving is. Although I suppose we can hardly be irate at you in death.”

“That’s the spirit!” Pharah chuckled as the Shrike joined them, and she grabbed the bounty hunter in the other arm.

“Oh… trust me,” the Shrike sighed. “You can be plenty pissed off after death. I’ve tried it.”

“Count of three,” Pharah urged, bending her knees slightly. The other two each grabbed onto her as they could, with one arm each - the other they kept free for their weapons. “Three… two… one… NOW!”

Symmetra’s finger tapped at the button, just once, and Pharah leapt forward, activating her jets. The Shrike’s rifle snapped off shots mechanically, one after the other, and every one was accompanied by a soldier slumping to the ground. Symmetra flung off a crackling orb of energy, then devoted her attention to surrounding them in a bubble of a shield.

Meanwhile, speakers built into the Raptora suit blared loudly. They’d been installed for civil unrest, but this was a favoured _alternate application_ for the system.

 _If I survive,_ she thought with a smirk, _I’m going to need to send Jesse a thank-you card for introducing me to the song…_

She skipped ahead a little bit, though, to get to the good part. After all, they were only going to have thirty seconds.

 

\---

 

They advanced toward the power room. When the lights came on, they knew where their foe would be found - the advance scouts called back confirmation, before going silent. The bulk of the forces, however, traveled in a group. They filled the halls with anger and shouts and weaponry, determined and delighted to vanquish the assailants who had plagued them all night.

They heard something. A rushing noise, loud - and something else, layered overtop of it.

_“I’m a colt in your stable, I’m what Cain was to Abel, mister, catch me if you can!”_

Something flew around the corner, black and gold and glowing blue, spewing flames from the back. Everyone tried to fire at it, but people started to fall as darts struck them and rockets exploded.

_“I’m going dooooown! In a blaze of glory!”_

The soldiers fired back, they threw their grenades, they turned to flee. The stories were all true, every one - a ghost, a beast, a machine of death and destruction, the reaper itself.

An angel of death, flying through the halls and mowing men down before it.

 

\---

 

Pharah started to laugh. Warning lights she’d never even _seen_ before started to flash as the Raptora’s overtaxed systems were pushed to - and past - the limits. Symmetra shouted out directions - left, right, left again - and time as well.

“Twelve seconds left!”

Pharah recognized this hallway. She was turning even before Symmetra told her to.

“Eight!”

She streaked along the length of that first hallway, skidding to a stop at the end and turning so the Shrike could spin the door’s latch back. They leapt through the door.

“Four!”

Pharah whirled and slammed the steel door shut, grabbed the other two, and hit her jets again.

“Two! One!”

There was a massive thump. Pharah shot up, and right over - directly through the hole that the tank had punched through the warehouse’s thin walls.

The early light of dawn was just starting to stream over the compound. Flames writhed through the courtyards unfettered, and a rumbling soon drowned out the sound of the jets at her back. Below them, the ground undulated and shook, then lifted all at once and collapsed back down like the last tired sigh of breath at the end of a day when you laid down in your bed.

Then it was still.

Her jets sputtered at her back as she slowed their descent, but they were toasted from the night’s work. Twenty feet from the ground, they cut out entirely and the three of them fell, tumbling where they hit the cracked ground.

Pharah lay for a second, breathing heavily. Her visor was a mess of flashing warnings and indicators. “Anderson’s gonna kill me.” She sighed and laid her head heavily back against the ground and laughed as her eyelids slipped shut. “I survived a nuke and Anderson’s gonna kill me.”

Her laughter was interrupted by a pair of lips pressed to hers, and she grinned and returned the gesture happily but let her eyes stay closed. “I’ll give you that _one_ free, Shrike, but next time I’m shooting you.”

Symmetra laughed as Pharah opened her eyes, but the sound swiftly cut off as the Architech glanced around. “Where did they go?”

Pharah sat up quickly and looked, but there was no sign of the bounty hunter. She chuckled, shaking her head. “Once a ghost, always a ghost, I suppose. Ah well - I’d say we succeeded here. I’m going to radio Helix for an evac, and we’ll be going back to base. Vishkar said they were very eager to have you back - a dropship is waiting for you there, to take you home.”

Symmetra nodded, the smile slipping slightly from her lips. “Yes, home. Good, good. It will be good to return.”

“You’re telling me,” Pharah chuckled as she grabbed Symmetra’s hand to shake it, grinning widely and meeting her eyes. “It’s been a pleasure, Symmetra.”

She laughed briefly, brushing a strand of black hair behind her ear and tugging her visor off. “I believe we are done with the fighting now. Please… call me Satya.”

Fareeha’s grin widened a few degrees. “Satya. It’s been a pleasure and uh… just, let’s not let this be goodbye, okay?”

“Indeed,” Satya giggled softly. “Let’s.”

 

\---

 

They looked peaceful through the scope. Harried, tired, frazzled - they bore the obvious signs of hours of work and strain and combat - but the pair of them looked quite peaceful, sitting side by side and leaning against each other's shoulders as the sun rose in the distance.

The Shrike’s hand reached into one of their pockets, and pulled out a letter. Penned by hand in Arabic, folded - it had been written a long time back, and they’d pulled it out dozens of times. Maybe hundreds.

Every time, they debated sending it. Every time, they decided not to.

“I won’t always be there to save your ass, _Habibti.”_  The Shrike chuckled, shaking their head. "Although maybe... tonight it wasn't me who did the saving."

They stuffed the letter back into their pocket and stood. Now was not the time.

Maybe tomorrow, though.

Maybe tomorrow, she would finally mail that letter to her daughter. Maybe she would finally tell Fareeha what had _really_ happened.

She wouldn’t, though. The Shrike, Horus, Ana Amari - whatever one wished to call her, she knew herself. She hadn’t given away the secret tonight, and she wouldn’t tomorrow.

...but she would keep an eye out. Just in case - and one of these days, _one_ of these days… she’d send that letter.

Sooner or later.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I haven't edited this really. I hope it's still good anyway! However, it's late and I'm working tomorrow, but I want to get this uploaded on time! Please let me know about spelling/grammar mistakes, or bits that just plain don't make sense - always, but particularly here, because I haven't looked myself. Thank you!
> 
> So, yes! For those who don't know, the song Pharah's playing is [Blaze of Glory, by Bon Jovi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfmYCM4CS8o) \- one that I've decided Jesse McCree introduced her to! Thanks to a show I was watching recently for inspiring that introduction to the story, I think it fits well and I like it :D
> 
> Yeah! Things! For those wondering, I posed three options a while back - this was... well, kinda halfway between option one and two. It was a harder version of option one. Option three, the roughest, was Symmetra knocking Pharah out (while apologizing in tears) and then the Shrike stepping out of the shadows and saying something to the effect of "good choice. You did the right thing - the same thing I would have done. The same thing I'm going to do." Then, she was going to hit Symmetra with the tranquilizer and put them both on the elevator. Elevator would have gone successfully to the surface, and the Shrike would be presumed dead until the end scene (but that was going to be pretty much the same).
> 
> Anyway! This was kind of option 1.5. I didn't have it in mind _specifically_ when I presented the options, if I'm honest (heh, oops), but I like it!
> 
> Thoughts? Questions? Opinions? Suggestions? Comments are always lovely!
> 
> Come on back next time for an aftermath epilogue! Wrap up a loose end or two! Thank you all so much for coming along with me on this, I hope you liked it! It's not quite, quite finished yet, but the action's all done, so... yeah! Hope it was as fun for you to read as it was for me to write! :D


	10. Closing the Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pharah debriefs at Helix, and finds out one or two things for herself as well. For once in the whole mission, something goes well and easily. Afterward, she leaves on vacation - or at least, on leave. Four days, to spend on her own terms - but _not_ , as it turns out, to spend on her own.

“Sir?” Pharah raised an eyebrow.

She was in the room with the Director again - but Helix hadn’t asked for an immediate debrief. Thankfully. She’d had much,  _ much _ more important thing to take care of.

It had been the best bath of her life. She and Symmetra had boarded the Helix dropship which had borne them swiftly back to base, at which point they'd scarcely had a chance to say goodbye before Symmetra was gone. Pharah had noticed how much stiffer she was around other people, around the  _ Vishkar  _ people with their bright clean suits - didn't blame her in the slightest, of course. Pharah acted differently around Helix as well.

They'd shaken hands, they'd nodded, they'd said a businesslike thanks, and they'd parted ways, and all the while she’d been hoping it wouldn’t be a permanent goodbye. Phone numbers had been exchanged, but that was never any guarantee.

Pharah had dropped her Raptora off in mechanical, and succeeded in avoiding Anderson. Her debrief had been scheduled for eight hours from then, and she'd headed home for a bath and a nap.

Candles, bath salts, a huge pot of Jasmine green tea, and a good book, an old favourite. She couldn't remember if she had  _ ever _ been that relaxed. The instant her head touched the pillow afterwards, she was out of it, and six hours was plenty of sleep for her.

Now, she sat in the chair in the Director’s office, looking at maps and photos as he spluttered.

“Amari! The- the entire compound is-” he raised a hand and swept it over his head, as if to run his fingers through his hair, but he had none. No hair, that is - he  _ did _ have fingers, but he was bald by choice.

“Look, just  _ look, _ at the satellite imagery - the entire compound has collapsed, the damage extends outside of the perimeter fence even, and the ground level- the analysts inform me that sections have dropped by twenty feet and that others have collapsed by nearly  _ sixty,  _ and you're telling me-” he chuckled, shaking his head with a grin. “You're telling me you have  _ no _ idea what happened?”

Pharah dropped her eyes to the hologram being projected above the Director's desk. It showed the compound she'd spent her night in - after the fact, collapsed, with the unmentioned Omnium destroyed. She'd not said a word about the factory, nor about the Shrike, nor about almost anything else that had happened.

“...underground munitions bunkers, perhaps?” She smiled as the Director groaned.

“Underground muni-” he cut himself off with a sigh.

“Don't see what else it could have been, Sir.” Pharah shrugged. “I can't say anything more than that - as I was prepping for final Evac, the hostiles started to flee. There was a big thump, the ground lifted up, and then everything collapsed back down. Don't see what it could have been other than a munitions bunker.”

“Amari,” he sighed, “whatever it was, it was a little over five times the size of Helix’s  _ entire _ facility here.”

“Sounds like a very large bunker then, Sir.” She chuckled lightly. “Suppose it's a good thing they didn't get to keep it!”

The joke actually drew a weary laugh from him, which Pharah was glad to see. It meant things were going well. “Sir… look, I understand wanting answers, but I'm sorry, I can't give them to you. If the board is that interested they'll need to send a team to excavate-”

“Oh, the board's already practically closed the case. Vaswani was returned and Vishkar is - might I add - absolutely delighted with the job you did.” The Director raised an eyebrow, “Apparently they got their equipment back?”

“Yes,” Pharah chuckled, nodding. “It was being stored in the same location as their operative, and it turns out their technology is more impressive than we’d expected. Managed to get it teleported right back to their base. I figured it might help our image, Sir.”

“Image, right.” The Director smirked, shaking his head slightly. “Well, Vishkar has now stated their intent to enter into negotiations to contract for security from Helix, and the board has put your name in for a commendation. Mission well done, Amari - but I do have one more question.”

She sat, silently, and waited. This was going better than expected, overall - but she figured she deserved one like that every now and then. With the number of things that just spiralled into unexpected catastrophe, it was nice to have one thing go all  _ right _ for a change.

“Your statement… is descriptive, but seems a little brief. Why did the mission take you so long? It should have only been an hour, maybe two.”

Pharah shrugged. “Well, Sir, I don't really know what to tell you other than I erred on the side of caution. Landed a good distance away to approach on foot, skirted the compound for surveillance…” she stood and traced out a route on the hologram, around the perimeter fence. “Found a hole in the fence around here and made my breach. Went slowly, hiding - low profile, of course - and incapacitated a few guards.” She sighed swiftly, shrugging again. “Don't know what else to say, Sir. Just took as long as it did.”

He watched her for a few moments, obviously weighing things up in his head. She had her reputations around Helix, and so did he, and they both knew it. She watched him in turn, the way his eyes studied her careful nonchalance.

“Low profile, huh?” He raised an eyebrow and one corner of his lips as well.

Pharah chuckled easily. “What can I say? Decided to try something new, Sir.”

He obviously didn't buy it, not exactly, but he did chuckle and she rolled one shoulder in a shrug. “There…  _ may _ have been something else, Sir, but it's not exactly professional.”

“Oh?” He leaned in across the desk reflexively as Pharah did the same, her voice dropping down to a soft murmur. “Well, the debrief’s officially over. You can consider this just my personal curiosity.”

“Yes, Sir - you see,” she cleared her throat, “when I freed the operative, she was - how should I say this?  _ Quite _ grateful, Sir.” Pharah grinned widely. “And the room they were keeping her in was quite secure and sound-proof.”

The Director stood back upright, clearing his throat and stammering and tugging at his tie as he blanched. “O-oh! Oh I- yes, well, um-”

Pharah laughed brightly, shaking her head. “I'm kidding, Sir! A joke, only a joke - you know I would never do anything like that on a mission! It simply took a long time to find her, there was a delay while she dealt with the equipment… little things adding up, that's all, Sir.”

The Director cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. Everything looks… more than adequate on our end. Like I said - Anderson’s emphatic statements aside-” he cleared his throat and fixed Pharah with a look. “I suggest you avoid him for a day or two, by the way.” She chuckled as he carried on.  “Mission accomplished, and well done - no more questions from me.”

“Of course, Sir.” She nodded with a smile. “I appreciated the thoroughness, as always. And… if I might add? I realize that this isn’t exactly Helix’s specialty, but I’d like to volunteer if the situation arises again.”

“Oh?” The Director settled into his chair. He wasn’t in charge of the entirety of Helix - nobody was, not for any organization as large as they were - but he was the head of this department at least. “I’ll keep your name in mind if anything arises, certainly, but you’re right. This was…” he sighed, glancing toward the window. “Probably a one time occurrence.”

She stood to leave, but something stopped her. Something in the tone of his voice, the way he looked off into space - something had her turning back as an idea struck her. “Sir, if I may… I have a friend. Angela Zeigler - she’s a doctor.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of her.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you thinking of recruiting her?”

Pharah laughed out loud at that. Angela minced very few words when it came to her feelings about fighting, and Helix. “No, Sir, not in the slightest - no offence. In fact, I had somewhat the opposite in mind. She’s often in aid camps, in rough places, and I think a bit of extra security could go a long way. The Raptora would be excellent for SAR, as well, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Don’t let Anderson hear you trying to add another capability to the list,” he murmured, something stirring in his eyes that soon brought a slight smile to his lips. “A humanitarian effort though, you say.”

“Remember when we were deployed into Araii? The earthquake hit as we were heading out and we stuck around to help with the efforts - the public response was overwhelming, if I recall correctly.” It was a careful dance, dressing up the pill just right to be taken.

“You do remember correctly,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “It’d be pretty easy to write it off with Finance - call it an advertising expense as long as we get headlines, and headlines we  _ will _ make. Even if there’s no money in it…”

A long, low, drawn-out sigh escaped him as he continued to stare out of the window. Far below, people walked through the courtyard or jogged - it was an idyllic view. So at odds with reality sometimes.

“This doesn’t leave this room, understand?” He continued to face away.

Pharah cleared her throat and nodded, standing a little straighter. “Of course, Sir. My lips are sealed.”

The Director spun his chair to face her and stood, meeting her eyes. “We’re being granted greater funding and purview by the U.N.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, it hasn’t been made public  _ quite _ yet, but there have been rumblings. Not good ones. People are worried, they don’t like it - Amari, I think this could be exactly what we need.”

Her eyes studied his as he stepped closer, smiling. Exactly what they needed - but for what? To look good? To keep the profits rolling in? Or was it for something better?

“Something to remind people that we’re trying to help. To protect them.” He nodded, sighing a chuckle. “I’ve been with this company for many years now, and things have changed a little bit, but at the core of it… I still believe that’s what we stand for. Protection. Security.”

Pharah had a reputation around the base. She saw straight through liars and cheats - nobody tried to bluff her out, nobody bothered playing poker with her. She could always tell when somebody was telling the truth.

Just as the Director was now.

“Of course, Sir,” she nodded. “I agree entirely. That’s… the whole reason I’m here. To protect people. And it’s an honour, Sir.” She offered a hand to be shaken. “Truly.”

The Director saw the look in her eye, the intensity of it, then smiled and shook her hand. “Yes, well - have a good day, Amari, and enjoy your R&R. Four days - compulsory, if you will.” He smirked. “No sneaking back onto base to use the firing range.”

“Is it so bad that I consider that relaxing, Sir?” Her own dark lips curled into a crooked smirk at the reference to a previous vacation. “You don’t need to tell me twice, though - trust me, I’ll be making the most out of these four days. You won’t see hide nor hair of me.”

“Good, good,” he nodded, stepping back around his desk and waving her off. “Well, good luck and I’ll see you in four days.”

‘Of course - oh,” she paused again, “and, Sir? I’ll have a dossier for you when I get back. Possible new recruit.”

The Director took his seat with a weary chuckle and raised an eyebrow to her over his grin. “Another friend of yours?”

Pharah answered his grin with one of her own. “You could say that, Sir. She’s very capable - might not be available frequently, but-”

“Far be it from me to deny you any placements to your own team, Captain.” He raised his hands, palms out. “You know your budgets and constraints.”

Her grin widened. “Is that a ‘yes’, Sir?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Yes, it’s a yes, now please get out of here before I promise you something else ridiculous. You’ll have my job, next!”

Pharah laughed brightly as she stepped backward toward the door. “Oh, nonsense, Sir!” She waved and turned, opening the door and muttering under her breath as she went, “I would hate being stuck behind a desk…”

 

\---

 

She smiled and nodded to the people she passed as she left the building. She didn’t know all the names - Helix was growing faster than she could keep up with it. They had more and more facilities now, and were gaining more every day, either constructing them or taking over old installations from other organizations or militaries. They gained recruits at an even greater rate, and through similar paths.

It led her to worry, sometimes. Big groups… they could run into problems, run out of control. They needed strong people, good people, in the right places to keep them on track.

That was why she was there. To protect them. To protect everyone.

The cab waiting for her at the curb bobbed gently on its repulsion field. She got in with a sigh and it set off, the autopilot already knowing where to take her - back to the apartment it had picked her up from.

It had made another short trip while she had been debriefing, however. Phone numbers had been exchanged - and while it was never a guarantee, it was something at least.

“Prepared for your vacation?”

Fareeha grinned over to the woman sitting easily on the seat opposite her. She looked different out of her field gear - and without the dirt and dried blood of days of captivity. More beautiful, which really wasn’t fair. “You bet. How many days did you manage to get?”

Satya laughed lightly, a crystalline sound of joy that filled the taxi as it lifted off of the ground and sped through the air. “Between the return of the plundered materials, and their guilt over my internment, they were willing to offer whatever I asked!”

“So, what then?” Fareeha grinned. “Taking a few weeks, see the sights, run all over the world with your little teleporters?”

The Indian woman sat back with a brief frown on her face, tugging at the sleeve of her blazer before the expression gave way to a confused smile. “Certainly not. You have four days, so I requested the same.”

Fareeha stared slightly, unsure of how to respond to that. She could have had any vacation she wanted, and she chose four days  _ together _ \- it was a little intense, but sweet, too, and entirely unexpected.

...and a little worrying. Fareeha wasn’t sure she was really the  _ girlfriend _ type. Luckily, she was spared any need to respond, because Satya continued speaking. “I have seen the world and explored it, and it is problematic.”

There was a bare beat of silence before Fareeha erupted in laughter. “See, and you almost had me fawning all over that! Silly me, thinking I was the reason.”

Satya giggled softly and shrugged, grinning back to her. “There are few people who I find it pleasant to spend time around. What better reason could I have for taking time away from my work? Of course it is you.”

For a few seconds, Fareeha just stared in wonder at that. She debated asking whether Satya had any clue, at all, how normal people talked - what they said after having known each other for a day or less. Only for a second, though, before deciding against it. After all, it was entirely obvious that she didn’t.

Although, Fareeha had to admit, she kind of liked it. 

“You really love what you do at Vishkar, don’t you?” That was the question she settled on instead, in the end, as she chuckled and shook her head.

“Of course.” Satya nodded, smiling - she wore a different arm today, as well as a different outfit, and that hand waved airily. “I am helping to build a better world. Partaking in joyous activities of which few are capable, and even fewer are proficient. How could I not love this?” She sighed and settled back against the seat of the taxi. “My life’s purpose, yes,” she murmured softly.

Fareeha thought she looked good like that - the way that fulfilled people always do, and while she still had her suspicions and skepticisms regarding  _ Vishkar _ , there was no question in her mind that Satya was telling the truth. She really did think she was making a better world and she really did love it. It was clear on her face, in her posture, the way she reclined and relaxed.

On a whim, Fareeha pushed off of her own seat and turned around to sit on Satya’s instead. Inside the back of the cab were two bench seats facing each other, wide and soft, and she wrapped her arms around the Indian woman’s shoulders and laid back with a sigh.

That was a lot better.

Satya moved a little, readjusting to find a comfortable position - but as always, as expected, she felt safe in this embrace. Whether through destiny or choice, it did not matter. Perhaps one, and then the other - that thought brought a smile to her lips. Destiny had brought them together. Choice kept them together.

It was a perfect meeting of two different worlds.

They both relaxed into a calm and comfortable silence, simple resting as the taxi bore them through the air with a gentle whirr. They both worked plenty enough - they deserved a rest every now and then, and while they didn’t mention it, they each thought that this was probably the best possible way to spend their time at the moment.

 

\---

 

Fareeha led the way in to her apartment, and Satya followed, studying the halls. It was an interesting building - a placard in the lobby had named the architect, but she didn’t recognize the moniker. She did, however, remember it, and would be looking them up when the opportunity presented itself: for somebody working without hard light, it was quite nice. Understated and simple, spartan perhaps, but still elegant.

It reminded her of Fareeha, in that way.

The off-duty soldier grabbed at the knob and twisted it; the smooth chromed surface read her fingerprints and the whorls of her palm and recognized her, unlocking automatically. It was a new building - the pamphlet had stated it as a masterpiece of the (in her opinion quite ironic) retro-modernist-nouveau style.

Lots of metal, either chromed or brushed, and smooth curves or flat surfaces. A large eagle statue in the four-story lobby was particularly impressive - and she was always happy to see children playing in it. The whole complex had been designed quite practically for all its aesthetic, and she loved that: the statue wasn’t just a statue, it was a playplace for children. The knobs were the locks as well, everything was quite integrated and convenient.

“Okay, but please excuse me for any mess,” Fareeha muttered as she swung the door open. “I haven’t had any time to deal with it since I got back.”

Satya chuckled softly. “I will prepare myself.” Even by Vishkar’s standards, she kept her domicile impeccable. She’d been to others, on occasion, and they were always slightly off-putting - but she could weather just about anything. Any amount of chaos was sure to be less than what she might encounter while taking care of a special task.

However, she  _ was _ worried about it…

The room, as it turned out, was very tidy. Entirely, in fact - the only things which could have been called “out of place” were a blanket thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch, and the small stacks of books around the place. Two on the coffee table, a small one on the side table next to the lamp. There was an empty teacup there, as well.

She could hardly call it a mess.

Fareeha glanced over instinctively to the letter carrier which blinked a soft red light. She reached into the tray and pulled out the letters which had been delivered in her absence. “Stove on,” she muttered almost thoughtlessly, shuffling through the small stack.

Paper mail had encountered a resurgence recently with new and less expensive technologies - and people had found that it was still the best way for certain things. Fareeha was glad for that. Just like with books, there was something different about letters as opposed to electronic messages.

“Do you like tea?” She glanced up from the letters, setting most of them on a small table off to the side but pulling open one which had no marks other than her name and address. Satya was wandering around idly, looking at seemingly everything - it was cute, she was almost like a kid at a museum or the zoo. That sort of excited studious look.

“Yes, quite, thank you,” Satya looked back to her with a smile, noticing then the half-opened letter in her hands and raising an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“Good question!” Fareeha chuckled as she slipped a finger along and opened the envelope the rest of the way. “No return address, but it’s addressed by hand and…” she frowned as she pulled out the single sheet of white paper inside and unfolded it.

Satya waited a moment for further explanation or some response, but none came: Fareeha kept standing there frowning at the paper. A few moments later, she slowly turned the sheet around, displaying a small series of characters written in the middle of the sheet - seemingly by hand.

“Arabic?” Satya inquired, and Fareeha nodded. “What does it say?”

The soldier turned the sheet around again with a shake of her head and a grin. “It says ‘I’m watching over you’. Heh - been a while since somebody was stupid enough to try to stalk me.” It really didn’t sound like a stalker, though - they would have left it at simply ‘watching you’. That ‘over’ in the middle could mean a very large difference.

Satya hummed as Fareeha crumpled up the sheet and tossed it casually into the corner - it bounced off of the wall and straight into a wastebasket there as she started to walk through the room toward the attached kitchen. “Do you have any clue who might have sent it?”

“Nope!” Fareeha laughed brightly. “Don’t care, though. If they’re trying to frighten me, they’ll have to try a whole lot harder than that!” She laughed again, feeling a bizarre shift in her stomach. The writing had looked familiar, somehow - like she’d seen that hand before, somewhere, but she couldn’t imagine where.

Recent events suggested a possibility, though.

“Do you have any idea who the Shrike might have been?”

Fareeha glanced back over her shoulder with a grin, catching honey-gold eyes for a second. Evidently Satya’s thoughts had followed similar paths. “None. They mentioned working with my mother, and perhaps that’s true, but that still means dozens if not hundreds of possible people. Can’t say that that kind of work is exactly uncommon for soldiers who find themselves out of a job,” she chuckled, gesturing a hand over herself. “Case in point.”

Satya shook her head firmly, loose hair tossing lightly around her shoulders. “I would not say that you are like them. Perhaps some facets are the same, but charcoal and diamonds are both carbon.”

“And which one would I be, hmm? Diamond or charcoal?” She flashed a grin back over her shoulder, stretching to fetch down a few tins of tea from a high cabinet but then shaking her head with a chuckle. “Never mind, don’t answer - I’ll just pretend I’m a diamond.”

“Pretend whatever you wish,” Satya smirked.  _ There is hardly a need to pretend the truth. _

“Anyway,” Fareeha sighed, gathering a teapot and a few cups, and filling a kettle with water. “I’ve already spent the whole morning debriefing - if it’s alright with you, I’d like to leave work behind for a minute at least. We should chat about it a little, but for now…”

“Of course, of course.” The Architech nodded, watching passively. She liked watching people do things. “As a parting mention, I will simply say again… thank you.”

Fareeha chuckled and leaned in to kiss her briefly on the cheek. “Thank you too. Now - what kind of tea would you like? I’ve got a few options here…”

She looked over them with interest, her eyes flicking occasionally from the tins to the rest of the apartment. One could tell much about a person from their surroundings - Satya could tell more from that than from talking to the person, certainly, or looking at them. She had never developed that particular skill, but a person’s environment defined them and vice-versa.

Perhaps she could not see the whole apartment. Perhaps she never would - and perhaps, that would carry through into their relationship as well. She might never know everything about Fareeha, but she suspected quite strongly - no, she  _ knew _ that she knew who the woman truly was, at her core.

Sometimes, first impressions could be perfectly accurate. For most of her life, Satya had been discouraged from trusting her own instincts when they came to people, but this must have been an exception because there was no possible alternative. Fareeha truly was a Guardian Angel.

Satya grinned as Fareeha’s hands gestured, as she finished talking about one of the teas. “It would be from India, I trust?”

A smirk was shot her way. “Mmm,” Fareeha hissed slightly, “Ceylon, actually. Sorry.”

“Almost traitorous,” Satay murmured through a grin, “but I suppose I will forgive you.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” Fareeha laughed. “You’ll simply need to bring me some from your homeland sometime.”

“Indeed I will.” She set one of the tins off to the side as her choice and took the others back to set them where they’d come from in the cabinet. “You should visit. Then you will be able to pick your own - wouldn’t that be better?”

Fareeha grinned as she spooned tea leaves into the strainer, thinking on that idea. The image of her and Satya walking through marketplaces - but not crowded ones, not bustling ones, probably either a very urban locale or perhaps some wide open farm. Sampling and laughing. Good things.

“You don’t think Vishkar would mind a visitor?”

Satya laughed, closing the cupboard. “Is it Vishkar you would be visiting?” Alternate arrangements would be made, it would be very simple.

With a chuckle, Fareeha took the whistling kettle off of the stove and poured into the pot. “No,” she murmured thoughtfully, smiling. “I suppose it wouldn’t…”

She still didn’t think she was a huge fan of the corporation, but she hardly knew much about it - one thing she did know, though, was Satya. Somewhat, at least. She was very much looking forward to getting to know more.

Maybe nothing would last, maybe they’d just end up being friends, maybe they’d fall out of touch all together, but right now Fareeha didn’t care about any of that. As Satya’s fingers threaded almost hesitantly through hers, she returned the gesture and squeezed lightly, turning a smile toward the Architech.

Right now, that was about all she cared about. She didn’t want to let herself get too worried about the future, and in doing so, ruin the present. Not this time. 

She turned around and rested back against the counter, leaning forward to kiss Satya gently on the lips. Maybe they’d watch a movie, maybe they’d talk, maybe they’d just sit and hold each other in silence the way they had in the taxi - she didn’t care in the slightest.

Whatever happened, and however long it happened for, she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty there! I don't think it's my strongest ending ever, but I wasn't really trying for a _strong_ ending, I wanted to leave it pretty open-ended. I very much wanted this to feel like set-up, like it leads on to other things - I didn't want to close things down tight. I think I did that, pretty much!
> 
> Also, I'd like to say that before posting this chapter, my _grand total_ word count here on Ao3 was 415, 000 words - I broke that beautifully even number by posting this XD I guess there's nothing for it now but to keep writing and draw even with 500k? Maybe more. We'll see!
> 
> I want to thank you all for coming along with me on this! It's not the last I'll write for this ship, and honestly it's unlikely to be the last I write for this exact setup either. It would be nice to come back to it and show where they go from here - but I'll depend somewhat on audience reaction for that. What would you be interested in seeing? Domestic things? Dates? The slices of life of these two fine folks? Maybe some of the missions when Symmetra joins up with Pharah's team?
> 
> For that matter, whatever else you'd like to see - pairings, plots, etc. - please let me know! Drop my a comment or send me a message on Tumblr or Discord (both linked in my profile). I love talking to people about this stuff, or any stuff really - if you wanna jam about headcanons or whatever, lay it on me!
> 
> I hope you all had fun, and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

**Author's Note:**

> Not exactly the best of first encounters, heh - and maybe they're not getting along so well at the moment, but it'll get better, don't worry!
> 
> Come on back next time when Pharah wakes up. She's pretty pissed about it - or at least, she's pretty pissed about getting knocked out in the first place.
> 
> Thanks for reading, folks! Hope you've liked it so far, and I'd love to hear what you think below - have a great day!


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